Heriot’s hospital cost 30,000l. in the erection. The first managers purchased the barony of Broughton, a burgh of regality, about a quarter of a mile northward of the city, a property which, from local circumstances, seemed likely to rise in value. On this and other adjacent land, the “new town” of Edinburgh now stands. The greater part of the valuable grounds from the bottom of Carlton-hill eastward, reaching to Leith, and to the east road to Edinburgh, is the property of the hospital, which will derive great additional revenue when the buildings on these lands complete the connection of Leith with Edinburgh. In 1779, Heriot’s hospital possessed a real income of 1800l. per annum: its annual income in 1822 was supposed to have amounted to upwards of 12,000l.
The statutes of the hospital ordain, that the boys should be taught “to read and write Scots distinctly, to cypher, and cast all manner of accounts,” and “the Latin rudiments, but no further.” The governors, however, have wisely gone so much “further,” as to cause the boys to be instructed in Greek, mathematics, navigation, drawing, and other matters suitable to the pursuits they are likely to follow in life. The majority of the boys are apprenticed to trades in Edinburgh, with an allowance of 10l. a year for five years, amounting to an apprentice fee of 50l.; and to each, who on the expiration of his servitude produces a certificate of good conduct from his master, 5l. is given to purchase a suit of clothes. Those destined for the learned professions are sent to the university for four years, with an allowance of 30l. annually. Six or eight are generally at college, in addition to ten bursers selected by the governors from other seminaries, who have each an annual allowance of 20l.
George Heriot confided to his intimate friend “Mr. Walter Balcanquel, doctor in divinity and master of the Savoy,” the framing and ordaining of the rules for the government of his hospital; and accordingly in 1627, Dr. Balcanquel, “after consulting with the provosts, baillies, ministers, and council of Edinburgh,” compiled the statutes by which the institution continues to be governed. By these it is directed that “this institution, foundation, and hospital, shall for all time to come, perpetually and unchangeably be called by the name of George Heriot his Hospital,” and that “there shall be one common seal for the said hospital engraven with this device, Sigillum Hospitalis Georgii Heriot, about the circle, and in the middle the pattern of the hospital.”
And “because no body can be well governed without a head, there shall be one of good respect chosen master of the hospital, who shall have power to govern all the scholars and officers;” and therefore the governors are enjoined to have a special care, “that he be a man fearing God; of honest life and conversation; of so much learning as he be fit to teach the catechism; a man of that discretion, as he may be fit to govern and correct all that live within the house; and a man of that care and providence, that he may be fit to take the accounts of the same; a man of that worth and respect, as he may be fit to be an assessor with the governors, having a suffrage given unto him in all businesses concerning the hospital. He shall be an unmarried man, otherwise let him be altogether uncapable of being master. He shall have yearly given unto him a new gown. Within the precincts of the hospital he shall never go without his gown: in the hall he shall have his diet, he and the schoolmaster, in the upper end, at a little table by themselves.”
The schoolmaster, whose duties in teaching are already expressed by the quality of the learning defined to the boys, also “must be unmarried.”
It is charged on the consciences of the electors, “that they choose no burgess’s children, if their parents be well and sufficiently able to maintain them, since the intention of the founder is only to relieve the poor; they must not be under seven years of age complete, and they shall not stay in the hospital after they are of the age of sixteen years complete: they shall be comely and decently apparelled, as becometh, both in their linens and clothes; and their apparel shall be of sad russet cloth, doublets, breeches, and stockings or hose, and gowns of the same colour, with black hats and strings, which they shall be bound to wear during their abode in the said hospital, and no other.”
Further, it is provided, that “there shall be a pair of stocks placed at the end of the hall in the hospital, in which the master shall command to be laid any officer, for any such offences as in his discretion shall seem to deserve it; and the master likewise shall have authority to lay in the same stocks any vagrant stranger of mean quality, who, within the precincts of the hospital, shall commit any such offence as may deserve it: the officer for executing the master’s command; in this point of justice, shall be the porter of the hospital.” The porter is to be “a man, unmarried, of honest report—of good strength, able to keep out all sturdy beggars and vagrant persons;—he shall have every year a new gown, which he must wear continually at the gate; and if, at any time, he dispose himself to marry, he shall demit his place, or else be deprived of the same.”
The last of many officers ordained is “one chirurgeon-barber, who shall cut and poll the hair of all the scholars in the hospital; as also look to the cure of all those within the hospital, who any way shall stand in need of his art.”