The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

The Jrlospital of Inverness. 271
to the said Session, and to adjust all matters both with
town and Kirk Session of Inverness concerning the settlement
of Raining's School there.
It appears from the burgh records that in October,
1726, four rooms above the Grammar School, the whole of
the third story of Dunbar's Hospital, was allocated for a
school and a master's house without rent, and to enter at
Whitsunday following.
The Session records of nth April, 1727, contain the
statutes and regulations for Raining's School agreed to in
Edinburgh on i6th March preceding, by the S.P.C.K., and
an extract from that Society's minutes of same date, show-
ing that Mr H. Moncrieff, whom they had appointed as
master, would enter on his duties at Whitsunday following;
and the Session, on hearing this read, recorded " that they
were well satisfied, and, the jMagistrates being present,
expressed their resolution without loss of time to set about
what was incumbent on them, and on all the members of
the Session to lay out themselves in all proper ways for the
encourageme'^'t of the said school."
The school was accordingly opened in the upper part of
Dunbar's Hospital, the Grammar School being continued
below it. It wa3 carried on there until a site on the Barn-
hill was purchased and a new school built there, undei an
arrangement between the S.P.C.K. and the Town Council,
and opened in 1757.
Bailie Gilbert Gordon was succeeded b}' Prox'ost John
Hossack in the office of hospital treasurer, which he held
from Candlemas, 173 i, to Martinmas, 175 1. An important
change took place in his time in the keeping of the Hospital
accounts in sterling mone\-—the effect being to make each
item stand at one-twelfth of what it did before. His
accounts are framed on the same clear model as those of his
predecessors, and as some of the mortifications, already
referred to as granted, now actual 1\- appear in the accounts,
in addition to a new i)nc. the amount of the Hospital .stock
at the time he resigned office shows a substantial increase.