New Cut Press big logo

Click below to buy online

Holy Cross History
Holy Cross Academy Edinburgh -
Life and Times of a Catholic School
1907-1969
Author: Norah Carlin
ISBN: 978-0-9563249-0-0
Published: September 2009

Holy Cross Academy, Edinburgh's Catholic senior secondary school, closed in 1969 but hundreds of former pupils gathered for the centenary reunion in 2007 which inspired this book. Historian and former pupil Norah Carlin has brought the story of Holy Cross Academy to life from archives, printed sources and the memories of individual former pupils, of whom the oldest interviewed was 95. The book also includes personal memoirs by eight former pupils which throw vivid and sometimes critical light on the Holy Cross experience. Long-forgotten episodes discussed here include:
  • the purchase of the school site by stealth from an unwilling seller in 1907;
  • the brief life of the Leith Education Authority (1919-21);
  • the failure of Edinburgh's plans to evacuate all schoolchildren in 1939.
The story of Holy Cross Academy is also placed in the context of Scottish educational and social history, in relation to landmarks such as the 1918 Education Act under which most Catholic schools in Scotland were transferred to the local authorities, the period of selective secondary education, and the move to comprehensive schooling which was one of the factors leading to the school's closure. A chapter on 'Life After Holy Cross' offers many examples of successful former pupils and assesses the school's contribution to raising the educational and social profile of the Catholic community in Scotland. The school produced two British Ambassadors, two Cardinals and many priests, teachers, doctors and lawyers as well as artists Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Demarco, former Lord Mayor of London Sir Francis McWilliams and businessman Sir Tom Farmer, among many other notable former pupils. Among the topics examined in the book's chapters are:
  • the character of Catholicism in a state school staffed by lay teachers;
  • the place of women and girls in a co-educational Senior Secondary school;
  • sport at a school which produced several well-known footballers but whose boys, like those in all Edinburgh's senior secondary schools, played rugby from the age of 15;
  • the Primary department, which in 1968 became a separate school, still carrying on the name and wearing the badge of Holy Cross.