Fidelis et Fortis
Faithful and Brave
Our Vision
Our vision is to provide a curriculum which enables all learners at James Gillespie’s High School to achieve their potential. We aim for excellence in learning and teaching and expect all learners to be actively engaged in their own learning. We recognise that learning is a lifelong process and is one to which we, as a school community, make a significant and lasting contribution.
Our Values
Respect
Kindness
Integrity
Inclusion
High Expectations
Bruntsfield House
Bruntsfield House and its lands changed hands over centuries, from the Brownes in the 14th century to the Lauders, who rebuilt the house after its destruction in 1544, and later to the Fairlies, who added to it in the early 1600s. Sold to the Warrender family in 1695, the house gained its famous “Ghost Room” and Green Lady legend before later additions were removed and the surrounding estate became the distinctive setting for the modern school.
We can trace our heritage back to 1803, when a school for 65 students was opened in Bruntsfield Place.
A History of Our School
James Gillespie, a wealthy Edinburgh manufacturer of snuff and tobacco, was born at Roslin in 1726. A plaque on the wall at 231 High Street indicates where his shop used to be and his shop sign – a small barrel marked ‘tobacco’ in gilt letters, with a boy beside it smoking a long pipe – can be seen at Huntly House in the Canongate.
The big snuff jar from his shop is in Lady Stair’s House near the Lawnmarket and at Colinton is Spylaw House, where he once lived and in whose grounds he had a mill for grinding snuff. Also at Colinton, in the churchyard of St Cuthbert’s Parish Church, can be seen his tomb with the inscription stating that he left part of his vast fortune for the establishment of “a free school for the education of poor boys”.
In 1803, as a result of the legacy of James Gillespie, a school for 65 students and one master was opened in Bruntsfield Place. In 1870 the school moved into a larger building where the Royal Blind Asylum now stands at Gillespie Crescent.
As the school developed, girls were admitted as well as boys and the number of students exceeded 1,000. During this period it was a preparatory school for the Merchant Company’s Secondary Schools.
In 1908 the Edinburgh School Board took over the responsibility for the school and in 1914 it moved into the building at Bruntsfield Links, until recently used by Boroughmuir High School as an Annexe. By then James Gillespie’s School had a flourishing Secondary Department.
In 1935 Edinburgh Corporation acquired Bruntsfield House and its grounds from the Warrender family. The building of the present school commenced in 1964 and was completed in 1966. The school became a secondary school for 800 girls.
In 1973 the school became an area co-educational Comprehensive School, reorganisation beginning at First Year intake level. By 1978 the school was fully established as a co-educational six-year Comprehensive School. In August, 1989 the school moved to one site on the completion of an extensive building and modernisation programme.