Black and white photographs, c.1900-20
RCAHMS: Edinburgh Merchant Company Collection
The photographs illustrate pupils from Merchant Company associated schools participating in a variety of physical activities, and were possibly to be used as a form of advertising.
In a charter granted by Charles II in 1681, the Company of Merchants of the City of Edinburgh was founded to further and protect their interests. Among their activities were the creation and support of educational establishments. These included the Mary Erskine School, founded in 1694 to provide education for daughters of the burgesses; Daniel Stewart’s College, founded in 1814, as a school for orphan and destitute boys; and from the bequest of a successful Edinburgh merchant and financier, George Watson, a college for boys was founded as a charitable hospital in 1741 and in 1871 a girls’ school was established.