The Schools of Slamannan Parish

The early history of schools in the Slamannan parish follows the pattern of the other parishes of the Falkirk district.  After the Reformation in the 16th century the Heritors were supposed to provide the resources required for the Parish Kirk to build and manage a school.  Such resources were only obtained under considerable pressure and for most of the time the parochial school struggled.  Slamannan was not a rich parish and the lack of free housing for the school master meant that it was hard to retain them.  By 1690 Slamannan was one of nine grammar schools in Stirlingshire – meaning that it taught Latin or Greek.  The population of the parish was dispersed and until the mid 19th century there was no proper village, though the isolated church provided some form of focus.

Slamannan was unusual in that the place where the school was held alternated annually between the west and the east ends of the parish.  It was only in 1808 that it finally settled near the church.  This left the east end a little isolated and so the farmers there banded together and took over the old school building at Dykehead near Avonbridge and ran it as a private school with trustees.

Unpredictably, the second half of the 19th century witnessed exponential growth following the construction of the Slamannan Railway in 1840 which allowed the extensive coalfield to be opened up and several collieries were established.  Each colliery built miners’ rows for its workforce.  These were relatively cheap single storey brick buildings with poor sanitation.  They were only intended to be temporary and their quality reflected that.  A single row might contain 20-25 dwellings, each inhabited by between two and eight people.  Places such as Southfield had 76 such houses and Binniehill 74.  The existing schools could not cope and the independently-minded miners worked with their employers to provide their own.  Private schools were set up at Barnsmuir, Drumclair, Jawcraig, Lochside, Low Limerigg, Southfield and possibly at Binniehill.

The Slamannan School Board was set up in 1873 and immediately constructed new schools at Slamannan and Limerigg, closely followed by a combination school with the Muiravonside School Board at Avonbridge.  The distribution of schooling was assessed in a report of 1881 which showed that there were 1,330 children of school age in the School Board district, which included a part of Falkirk parish.  284 were attending the Public School, 221 the Free Church School, 197 Limerigg School, 137 Drumclair School, 64 Avonbridge (Combination) School, 72 Southfield School, 25 Jawcraig School, and 92 were attending schools out of the district; 238 were absent from school from various reasons.  The decline of coal production led to the private schools closing one after the other and their pupils were transferred to those of the School Board.  The collapse of the coal mining industry after 1910 led to a rapid depopulation of the area.

The Slamannan School Board was replaced by Stirlingshire County Council, which in turn made way in 1975 to Central Regional Council, and in 1996 to Falkirk Council.

The pupils of Slamannan School Board schools who wished to prepare for higher education or entrance into a university first went either to Airdrie High School or Coatbridge Academy because for many years the only convenient way to travel was by rail.  After the buses began to run regularly to Falkirk in 1924 it became possible to travel to Falkirk High School.  When it became Woodlands Secondary School they spent the first two years there before going on to either Falkirk High or Graeme High Schools.  This too changed and they were bussed to Braes High School until 2017 when it was switched to the new Falkirk High School.

The schools listed under Slamannan Parish are:

Bibliography

Hood, J.2015Old Slamannan and Avonbridge.
Waugh, J1977Slamannan Parish through the Changing Years.

G.B. Bailey, 2024