Paisley - John Neilson School - Inside

1. Paisley - John Neilson School - Inside Time 2008-05-29 18:42
John Neilson of Nethercommon, a Paisley merchant, ordained and appointed in his Will of 1839 that his Trustees "purchase a feu in the town of Paisley ... and erect; a building or buildings thereon, such as they shall consider suitable to the purposes of the Endowment hereby created". That Endowment was the John Neilson Institution; the building, a noteable landmark raising its dome high above the west end of the town, received its first pupils in April, 1852.From the outset, the policy of the Trustees was most enlightened. While providing generously for Foundationers, children "whose parents have died either without leaving sufficient funds for that purpose, or who from the want of means are unable to give a suitable education to their children", they decided that fee-paying and non-fee-paying pupils should be taught without distinction, and they rejected the view that it was not possible "to blend the rich and the poor together in one large seminary".The John Neilson Institution always offered a wide range of subjects for study and it is recorded that the senior pupils professed Mathematics, Latin and Greek, Comparative Etymology, Outlines of Astronomy, History, English Language, Prosody, and various subjects coming under the umbrella of Natural Science. Later French and German were added as additional subjects in the curriculum and, possibly as a result of the rich diet provided and the excellence of the pedagogy, by 1870 among former pupils of the Institution could be counted a Professor in Glasgow, a Shaw Fellow, and a Snell Exhibitioner at Oxford.As time went on, an increasing demand for accommodation in the school resulted in a roll of over 1,000 pupils by the late 1880s but thereafter, subsequent to the abolition of fees in public schools within the burgh and its immediate neighbourhood, the numbers fell. It was around this time also that the John Neilson Institution came under the control of the Paisley Educational Trust. Nevertheless, both in times of light and heavy rolls, the standards of the school were always maintained and it is significant that this was the only Scottish school to win a Gold Medal in the Paris Exhibition of 1900. It was in this year also that Departmental demands 'coincident with a diminishing income created extreme difficulties for the Directors of the school, from which they were rescued by the generosity of the Trustees of Wm. B. Barbour and Peter Brough. The infant school was then remodelled and equipment supplied to bring the school up to the standards required of the day to provide education as an "Intermediate " Higher Grade school which provided education for secondary pupils to the end of the third year only. Those pupils of the John Neilson Institution who wished to continue their day school education beyond that stage then proceeded to other schools in the area and there were not a few citizens of Paisley who as a result were former pupils of both the John Neilson Institution and of Paisley Grammar School. In 1918 the school was transferred to the newly created Renfrewshire Education Authority and, at this time, those responsible for its well-being expressed considerable fears for the continuance of the tradition, ideals and independence of the school. But in 1918 a very liberal agreement was reached during the then transitional period and the fears of the traditionalists at that time have since proved completely groundless. Indeed, it was not many years after the responsibility for the school was transferred to the Education Authority that it grew to its former stature as a full secondary school offering its pupils courses continuing to the point of presentation for the Higher Leaving Certificate.The John Neilson Institution would not have been the school it was had it not been served over the years since its foundation by a succession of gifted and dedicated Headmasters supported by equally devoted members of staff, many of whom, having been former pupils themselves, took more than a merely professional interest in the welfare of the school and of its pupils. It is to these Headmasters and teachers that it owed much of its sense of tradition and its feeling of continuity over the long period of its existance. Nor would this testimonial be complete without making reference to the contribution of the Gardner family. From the very founding of the school when Archibald Gardner inspired and directed its early course, through the time of James Gardner, his son, that of James Gardner, his grandson, and the era of the Renfrewshire Educational Trust, there had always been a Gardner to protect the interest of the school with a wise beneficence.In 1968 the John Neilson High School moved to a new site in Ferguslie where it remained until 1989 when it was absorbed into Castlehead High School. In 2001 the JNHS buildings in Ferguslie were pulled down, although the JNI 'dome' building in Paisley's West End remains a local landmark.
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