Michael T Tracy

James Hunter (1773-1850) Michael T Tracy

Education has always played an important role in the lives of children in Scotland. Indeed, Scotland's first education act was passed as far back as 1496, when James IV ordered that the eldest sons of barons and freeholders should study Latin, arts and law, in order to ensure that local government lay in knowledgeable hands. Two hundred years later in 1696 the Act for Settling of Schools was passed that ordered locally funded Church supervised schools to be established in every parish in Scotland. This Act also stated that each parish would have a paid schoolmaster and further that a school house be established. James Hunter would follow in the tradition of the old schoolmasters of Tynron Parish, Dumfriesshire, by becoming a schoolmaster himself serving the children of the parish for decades. Hunter would also be appointed an Elder of Tynron Parish Church in about 1807 and served in this position until his death. James Hunter married Jane Crichton and they had nine children who were all born in the parish. This then is the narrative of the life and times of James Hunter, the schoolmaster of Tynron.