Loretto School, founded in 1827, is an independent boarding and day school for boys and girls aged 3 to 18. The campus occupies 85 acres (34 ha) in Musselburgh, East Lothian, Scotland.[2]
History
The school was founded by the Reverend Thomas Langhorne in 1827. Langhorne came from Crosby Ravensworth in Westmorland. He named the school for Loretto House, his then home, which was itself named for a medieval chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto, which had formerly stood on the site of the school. The school was later taken over by his son, also named Thomas Langhorne. The last link with the Langhorne family was Thomas' son John, who was a master at Loretto from 1890 to 1897, and later headmaster at John Watson's Institution.[3][4] Loretto was later under the headmastership of Dr. Hely Hutchinson Almond from 1862 to 1903.[5]
In the 1950s the school increased the accommodation in science laboratories, established arts as a part of the curriculum and introduced the chapel service as part of the daily school life.[6]
The school originally accepted only boys, but in 1981 girls joined the sixth form and in 1995 the third form, so making the school fully co-educational by 1997.[7]
Loretto school's Pinkie House, built in the Scots baronial style
In 2001 the film director Don Boyd published an article in The Observer detailing his systematic sexual abuse by a teacher in the school in the 1960s.[8] The revelation led to further allegations about the teacher from other former pupils and subsequent calls for the teacher's prosecution.[9][10] The teacher, then 79 years old, was charged, but the case was dropped on the grounds of his ill health.[11][12] The teacher later died.[9] In 2017, it was announced that the school would be investigated as part of Lady Smith's inquiry into child sexual abuse.[13]
In 2021, Boyd told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that the late Guy Ray-Hills, a French teacher at Loretto, raped him in 1958 when Boyd was 10 years old.[14] Loretto School admitted to the Inquiry that pupils had been abused by one of its teachers in the 1950s and 1960s. Angus Bell, a former pupil, gave evidence and later sued the school for £1 million for extensive sexual, emotional and physical abuse suffered in the 1990s mostly at the hands of older pupils under the "fagging" system.[15][16] David Stock, a teacher, also gave evidence and said he informed the Loretto school authorities of the abuse but was targeted, forced to resign and sign a non-disclosure agreement.[15] The Inquiry, which spanned a period from 1945 to 2021, published its findings in April 2023, upon which Loretto offered an unreserved apology and deep regret for abuse experienced by children under its care, at both the junior and senior schools.[17]
In 2010 the school was sued by an employee for sex discrimination: the employee felt she had been treated unfavourably following the announcement of her pregnancy. Judge Stewart Watt rejected the sexual discrimination claim asserting that 'there appears to have been no ulterior motive to make [the employee] redundant during the review of the department; the only motive was to try to better organise the school', but he stated that the school had breached maternity regulations. The claimant was awarded £8,000 for loss of earnings and emotional stress.[18]
In 2013, Loretto School was informed by the Scottish Charity Regulator that it did not qualify for charitable status for failing to provide sufficient public benefit.[19] Subsequently, the school modified its means-tested bursary provision and has remained a registered charity ever since.[20]
Former Scotland rugby captain Jason White took his first steps into teaching with a role at the school in September 2017.[21] In the same month it was announced that Jacob Slater, 15, a pupil at the school, would appear in the American-Scottish historical action drama Outlaw King about Robert the Bruce and the Wars of Scottish Independence.[22]
In September 2018, the employment of a teacher at the school, who had been accused of inappropriate behaviour towards students, was terminated.[24][25]
Loretto School was listed as the fourth-highest Scottish independent school in the 2018 A level league tables.[26]
Facilities
Loretto School is set in an 85-acre (34-hectare) campus and is made up of two parts: the Junior School ("The Nippers") for children aged 3–12, and the Senior School for those aged 12–18.[27]
Loretto Golf Academy
The Loretto Golf Academy, established in 2002, offers golf to over 250 pupils using the local links courses and the School's new Indoor Golf Performance Centre.[28]
Heads of School
1825–1862 Langhorne family (Thomas, Thomas II, John)
The motto of the school, Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna, means literally "You have obtained Sparta: embellish it". The Latin is a mistranslation by Erasmus of a line from a Greek play, Telephus by Euripides. The words have been interpreted as meaning "You were born with talents: develop them" or "Develop whatever talents you have inherited".[70]
"There is something else than the mere alternative of absolute destruction, or unreformed existence. Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna. This is, in my opinion, a rule of profound sense, and ought never to depart from the mind of an honest reformer. I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases ... a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.[71]
References
^"Loretto School". Scottish Council of Independent Schools. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
^The Langhorne Memorial, The Levite, Vol IV, No.7 (Spring 1927)
^John Langhorne's grandfather (also John Langhorne, master of Giggleswick school) was the cousin and neighbour of Thomas Langhorne senior. See Crosby Ravensworth archives
^"Marr, Andrew William Stevenson, (born 31 July 1959), Presenter: Start The Week, Radio 4, since 2002; The Andrew Marr Show (formerly Sunday AM), BBC TV, since 2005". Who's Who. 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.26659.
^"Top Class Art". The Glasgow Herald. 13 June 1983. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
^Hawley, Graham. "School Motto". Loretto.com. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
^ abEdmund Burke, "Reflections on the Revolution in France" in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Vol. V (London: C. & J. Rivington, 1826), pp. 284–285
Sources
Marshall, Howard; Jordon, J.P. (1951). Oxford v Cambridge, The Story of the University Rugby Match. London: Clerke & Cockeran.
