Robert Jamieson (1827-1899)
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
Robert Jamieson, schoolmaster and writer, is one of the key educationalists of the late 19th C. in Shetland - and perhaps, by example, in Scotland too. In partnership with his wife Barbara, the eldest daughter of Robert Laing, teacher in Reawick and Gulberwick, Jamieson succeeded by nationwide appeal and public subscription in building what was at the time a model school at Cruisdale in his home parish, the Sandness Public School. He obtained the land by direct appeal to the landowner, Dr. R.T.C Scott of Melby, who unlike other lairds of the time, was rather enlightened and philanthropic towards his tenants.
Robert was born at Norby, Sandness, the fifth of eight children, to a Dale of Walls man, Fraser Jamieson and his wife Helen, nee Nicolson, of Papa Stour. He was, as they called it then, 'lame', some say from childhood polio, and he was orphaned aged ten, but he was a 'listenin boy', possessed of great natural intelligence.
By age seventeen he was off to train as a teacher in Edinburgh, where he struck up a number of friendships which he maintained by correspondence when he returned to Shetland to teach at Wadbister, Tingwall. Robert was trained by the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, but he saw education required a practical application to complement the spiritual, and he walked to Gulberwick regularly so he could learn Navigation from Robert Laing, in order to then teach it to the boys in his class.
It was during these wanderings from Wadbister to Gulberwick that a romance between Laing's oldest child, Barbara, and the gifted young teacher flourished, though there were eleven years between the two. In 1858 Robert got the chance to return to Sandness, when he was appointed schoolmaster by the SSPCK. The state of the Sandness shool and the master's dwelling was appalling, but Jamieson set about work with a great sense of purpose. He was joined by Barbara after they married, on August 8th 1861. He had gained not only a wife but a true helper in his work.
The young couple's zeal impressed the new laird, Dr. Scott, who had recently inherited and was desirous of improvement, so that when they explained their dream of a new shool and schoolhouse he agreed to them choosing a plot of land. The Jamiesons had already chosen: Cruisdale, on a bank looking out over the meadows to St Magnus Bay, equidistant between the east and west, and north and south, so none of the bairns would have to walk too far. The problem remained of how to raise the money. It was here that Jamieson's skill as a writer, and his network of correspondents in Scotland, came into play.
The scheme was simple: write to all the schoolteachers in Scotland, explain that if the premises are not renewed, then it will be the end of the SSPCK in the parish - and in the years before the first education act, that was the end of education for the people. Then, ask all the teachers for sixpence each. The sheer simplicity, not to mention the audacity of it won the plan publicity, and Jamieson found himself corresponding with not only teachers, but all classes and professions; then, by 1869, addressing people broadly through the columns of 'The Scotsman' - people genuinely touched by his skillful depiction of the predicament.
Coming just at the time when the swell of sentiment that would break as the Education Act of 1872 was beginning to rise, it caught a wave - and it became emblematic of its time. The school at Cruisdale was built with much love and attention to detail, a model admired by many, not just in Shetland, as a fine example of what might be done in 'the remote districts'.
Robert lived to be seventy-one and amassed a large library which was open to anyone to borrow from. His own interest was primarily in Scandinavian studies and Shetlandic history. When the Faroese philologist Dr. Jakob Jakobsen came to Shetland study the old Norn language in the summer of 1893, Jamieson was one of his key sources. Jakobsen recounts that "I made a short stay in Sandness, where I found the local schoolmaster, Robert Jamieson, an enthusiast for Old Norse associations. He and his wife showed the most lively interest in my undertaking. I visited Sandness again after my return from Foula and the main portion of the word-stock I collected on the Westside, excepting Foula, I obtained in Sandness, especially from Jamieson (now deceased) and Mrs. Jamieson."
Robert Jamieson was a voluminous correspondent, writing regularly for the national press, and maintaining literary relationships with friends and colleagues in Britain, Scandinavia and abroad. After Robert's death on January 19th 1899, the family moved to Twageos House in Lerwick. A number of the Cruisdale siblings were to become eminent in their fields: Frank, as Chief Inspector of Schools for Scotland; John, as professor of Anatomy and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Leeds; Edward E.B. Jamieson, demonstrator and lecturer in Anatomy at Edinburgh; and James Peter Speid Jamieson, as a doctor, botanist and politician, in Nelson, New Zealand - while the eldest daughter Christina Jamieson became a well-known local writer, folklorist and activist in local politics.
External Link
Peter Jamieson, greatgrandson of Robert, has a number of interesting photographs of the family @:
