| Administrative History | The Boys' Hospital evolved out of Aberdeen's Poor's Hospital, which had provided residential places for poor children since the 1741 (see collection reference PH for the records of this institution). A separate Boys' Hospital was founded in 1818 in a building on the Gallowgate, using a legacy given to the Poor's Hospital by Alexander Simpson of Collyhill. In 1829 the Hospital moved to Upperkirkgate.
A separate Girls' Hospital was founded in 1828, taking over the Gallowgate buildings vacated by the Boys' Hospital. The New Statistical Account records that the Girls' Hospital was initially funded by subscriptions, which totalled £1,500 after a few months. The Girls' Hospital opened in 1829, receiving 20 girls who were children of the poor of the parish of St Nicholas, or orphans. Places for 10 additional girls were added in 1830, and a further 10 in 1835. The girls were admitted between the ages of 6 and 9 and stayed at the hospital until they were 14. They were taught "reading, writing, arithmetic, church music, sewing, knitting, and house-work" plus religious instruction, and lived in the Hospital.
In 1852 an Act of Parliament allowed the management of the Boys' and Girls' Hospitals' funds to be merged. Representatives of Town Council, Kirk Session and Parochial Board of St Nicholas served as the Hospital's trustees, and the Hospital was overseen by weekly visitations and a House and Education Committee. The 1864/65 Aberdeen Post Office Directory states that children were admitted between the ages of 7 and 10 and left before they reached 14. The Hospital took in 50 girls and 50 boys from St Nicholas parish, and provided an education consisting of reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, drawing and music. The Boys' and Girls' Hospital moved to premises in King Street in 1871, having previously maintained separate premises for boys and girls, and was amalgamated into the Aberdeen Educational Trust in 1888.
Under the AET's scheme of administration, the Hospital closed in November 1889, and the building was repurposed as the Boys' and Girls' Hospital School, for foundationers who had lost either or both parents or who could not be cared for at home during the day. Their parents or guardians had to be resident in the parish of St. Nicholas. Former residents of the Boys' and Girls' Hospital were to be provided with allowances for clothing and lodging or transferred to the Female Orphan Asylum (see AET/AFOA). |