Dr Bell’s School

Dr Bell’s School, viewed from Great Junction Street.

Photo: D King, 15/11/2018.

Dr Bell’s School was completed in 1839, and is near St Thomas Junction Road Church. Dr Bell was a Church of England clergyman who had served as a chaplain to the East India Company and who became the superintendant of an orphanage for the orphans of British soldiers in India. While there he devised a system of education called the ‘Madras System’. This involved the teacher in teaching a group of the brightest pupils (called ‘monitors’) who then had to teach the same material to their fellow pupils. While this may seem odd to us, it was attractive as it provided some very basic education to as many children as possible at a modest cost.

The school as shown on the Ordnance Survey large scale town plan ‘Edinburgh and its Environs’ for 1852. Between the date of this map and the next edition in 1876, Junction Place was formed to the south-east of the school, and the Free Church marked on the map had become a Methodist Chapel.

Extracted from Ordnance Survey large scale town plan sheet 16 published 1852. Original scale 1:500. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

When Dr Bell died, he left money to found a number of schools, one of which was to be in Leith. The foundation stone was laid in October 1838. The ‘Scotsman’ newspaper reported on 10 October 1838 that the subjects taught would be ‘reading, grammar, writing, arithmetic with the use of globes’. All of this would be provided for a fee of one shilling per quarter (or 1½d per week) which included the cost of books, paper and writing materials.

In later years, the school was taken over by Leith School Board and extended, classes being taught by paid teachers. Part of the three-storey extension can be seen to the rear of the original building in the photograph above, and part of the swimming bath added in 1896 is visible on the right.