‘It being represented to the university, that the want of an accomplished gentlewoman for teaching white and coloured seam, was an occasion of several gentlemen’s sons being kept from this college, their parents inclining to send them, where they might have suitable education for their daughters also; and that one Mrs Cuthbert, now residing in this town, had given sufficient proof of her capacity and diligence ... the university judged it reasonable ... to advance her twelve pounds Scots, out of the revenue belonging to the college for the ensuing year.’ After this mention, Mrs Cuthbert passes quite out of the University Records, so we do not know whether the housewifely efforts of the authorities of the university were successful.
James Gregorie as mediciner received a salary of 180 pounds Scots, 26 bolls bear, 18 bolls meal; and on his resigning his chair on the 20th December 1732, his son James was eo die appointed to fill the vacancy, to receive in his turn this munificent salary, and to live in the fascinating manse.
Dr Gregorie married first, Catherine, second daughter of Sir John Forbes of Monymusk, but she died young; his second wife was a daughter of Principal Chalmers (one of the family who founded the Aberdeen Journal), and we can imagine a little joint influence on the part of the Dean of Faculty and the Principal of King’s College bringing about this desired election, for we never hear that the third Professor James ever did anything to make his name live. It was to be left to his stepbrother to carry on the tradition of the family, but John Gregorie was only a child when his father died.
Dr James Gregorie, the mediciner, died in January 1733.
In many ways he was among the least distinguished of his family. He stands there in a misty crowd of the educational magnates of a very far past time, surrounded by the canonist, the civilist and other obsolete dignitaries, and all he leaves is an impression of content and of diplomatic gifts, which show themselves whenever he rises out of obscurity. This diplomacy, which when it is used in domestic affairs is called by the Scotch ‘canniness,’ was passed on in the family along with the gout which came from the Chalmerses, and the combination was curious. Later on James Gregorie, the cousin of Rob Roy, was recognised as the founder of the Aberdeen School of Medicine.
His son, Professor James Gregorie, was professor from 1732 to 1755. He was delicate and irritable, and his friends had a standing joke whenever he was cross, which probably palled upon him after a certain time. ‘Ah,’ they would say, ‘this comes of not being educated by Rob Roy.’ They, at least, thought this extremely witty.
Dr Gregorie married Helen Burnet, who was a connection of his own, one of the Burnets of Elrick. They had no children. He died on the 18th of November 1755.
CHAPTER VIII
JOHN GREGORY, 1724–1773
‘The good-natured size of his person and set of his face, seem to show that Philosophy is not the thing of toil and anguish it once was to men.’—Robert W. Barbour.
From an Aberdeen education at the Grammar School to begin with, and afterwards at King’s College, where he learned his Latinity, John Gregory came to Edinburgh in 1742. He came with his mother to look after him, who, poor soul, was haunted by the remembrance of his brother George’s early death, and would hardly let John out of her sight. Both of the boy’s guardians had agreed that for a medical education he must attend Edinburgh University. His brother, the mediciner in Aberdeen, never seems to have suggested that he should stay there, where there was really no systematic teaching of medicine, nor did his grandfather, Principal Chalmers, the Principal of King’s College.