Free Church General Assembly which drew up a petition accepted by the

Assembly and sent to both Houses of Parliament asking for recognition of

the new situation existing in Scotland as a result of the great number of Free

Churches and Free Church Schools now established. The petition declared

‘the means of instruction for the present enjoyed in Scotland are altogether

inadequate to the educational wants of the population’. It called for ‘salaries

of the teachers to be greatly increased, but first there should be a reform and a

change of the whole system’. In 1864 a new scheme of education based on

this petition was accepted by the General Assembly of the Free Church.

In 1858 Mr. John Findlay replaced Mr. Stewart as schoolmaster of the

Free Church School. In 1860 it was reported that the schoolmaster’s house

(next to the school and now known as Hall House) was completed and that

the school had been repaired and enlarged. By the next year there were 126

pupils on the Free Church School roll, and by 1867 the number had risen to

226.

This large increase in the number of pupils attending the Free Church

School was caused in part by what Mr. Haig of Kincaple, a heritor of the

district, called the present state of Strathkinness School. The Reverend

David Stewart, minister of the recently established Parish Church, writing

in 1864, said that the last census (1861) of the Parish of Strathkinness showed

a population of 1296 and the number of people who sent their children to

Strathkinness School (which included people in the surrounding area except

Denhead, which had its own school) ‘must number at least 1100... and until

some 14 or 15 years ago [Strathkinness School) was the only school in this

Place. But from the growing infirmities of the Teacher, and the fact of a

rival School having been erected, the attendance at Your school has greatly

declined. The present number of pupils is about 60 while in the other school,

I am informed about 170’. Mr. Peattie who had ‘laboured assiduously and

faithfully ... for upwards of 30 years’ would be willing to retire if he could

obtain a ‘suitable allowance or annuity for his future maintenance’. The

heritors agreed to pay Mr. Peattie an annual sum of £25 (for which he often

had to ask) if he would retire, and a committee was set up to find a successor.

The Free Church, and Mr. Findlay, were asked whether they would agree to

the two schools joining, with Mr. Findlay becoming headmaster. Mr. Irvine,

the Free Church minister, who had succeeded Mr. Thorburn after his untimely

death, wrote to the St. Andrews Kirk Session saying ‘Mr. Findlay was willing

to submit himself to the requirements of the Established Church’ in order to

become schoolmaster of the combined school, and he thought it probable

that the Deacons Court of the Strathkinness Free Church ‘would hand over

the Free Church School and Schoolhouse to the Kirk Session and Heritors

for a female Teacher’. However, when the proposal to ‘turn the Free Church

School into a Female school ... met with such violent opposition ... by various

parties in this locality [they) fear it cannot at present be harmoniously carried

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