The response
so far is thrilling

same time. Throughout Scotland and parts of England we have volunteers who know the School well and are visiting people, writing to their friends, selling raffle tickets and drumming up support in donations and covenants.
We have a small team
visiting the heads of industry and obtaining donations from their firms' funds and from their Charitable Trusts.
We have many Old Victorians, friends and supporters, parents and boys who are undertaking fund-raising events and sponsored marathons, or even silences. (I now know the meaning of Silence is golden!).
And overseas we have established contact with a great many Scots in exile, through the various Caledonian, St Andrews or Burns Societies.
The help and support is inspiring and most encouraging. The hard work comes in converting it into cash. Just as in the School's foundation, the sums are only going to be achieved by a great many modest donations, in addition to the few comparatively large ones that we have already received or can hope to receive.
Can YOU individually or as a group find a way of raising £100, £200 or even more so that we can see this snowball continue to gather in size and bring the opening day of the new hall on to our Calendars for 1991?

Education combined
with security for
the pupils

THE General who commands the Army in Scotland also holds the same responsibilities in Queen Victoria School as the chairman of the board of governors in an independent school. It is in that capacity that I have undertaken, at the request of all Her Majesty's Commissioners, to conduct this Appeal.
I must admit to finding the sum distinctly daunting when we first set off towards our £600,000 target. Now we are more than a third of the way, and I have been thrilled by the response from pensioners putting in 50 pence to the major industries and charitable trusts whose donations have been measured in thousands of pounds.
The goodwill towards the School, and the determination that it should live up to the high expectations of its founders are alive and well. We have now to convert that goodwill into the next £400,000 and reach our objective before inflation in building costs makes an even larger sum the target that we must meet. We are advancing on a great many fronts at the

THE original intention in building the School is clearly expressed in the founding Minutes of Agreement signed in 1905 between the members of a Committee set up for the purpose of establishing in Scotland an Institution to be known as the Queen Victoria Memorial School, for the reception and education of the sons of Scottish Sailors and Soldiers. There was also to be a Memorial Chapel as a National Monument to the Sailors and Soldiers who fell in the South African War.
This minute was signed on behalf of Her Majesty's Government by the then Secretary of State for War. In addition to undertaking to maintain the School in perpetuity and equal in education, upkeep and character to the Duke of York's School...." the agreement set out the right of subscribers to nominate boys for admission to the School.
The draft of the first Royal Warrant setting out how the School was to be run was included in this founding agreement, and set out the priorities for entry as first, nominated boys, second, orphans, third, boys who had lost their fathers, fourth, those who had lost their mothers, fifth, those whose fathers were still serving, and lastly, other eligible boys.
The nomination of boys was in the hands of the Navy, Regiments, Counties, Burghs and individuals in direct relationship to the amount subscribed; for the services, one place per £500, and to the civilian organisations or individuals, one place per £1000.

In this way, the places in the School were quickly filled though there is, sadly, no record of what proportion of entrants were nominated boys. Of the first 100 admitted in 1910 and 1911, there were no sailor's sons and 90 per cent were from the Scottish Regiments; of these 46 per cent had lost their fathers.

A further sample taken of the 100 boys admitted from January 1920 shows that 83 per cent were from the Scottish Regiments, 14 per cent from the rest of the Army, and only three per cent

from the Navy; of these 100, 58 per cent had lost their fathers.
Of the 100 admitted from Jan 1946, 38 had lost their fathers, 60 came from the Scottish Regiments, two from the Navy, four from the RAF and the balance from Scots serving elsewhere.

Today the balance between the services and within the Army is, in percentage terms, much more in keeping with the overall service strength, and is kept that way as a matter of deliberate policy. Thus today 13 per cent are RN, 70 per cent Army and 17 per cent RAF. Unfortunately, still 5 per cent of today’s boys have lost a parent, and sadly a further 20 per cent have suffered a broken home, often as a result of the stresses of service life.

Though the right to nominate boys still technically exists, it has largely fallen into disuse because Regiments and indeed individuals today find it far more appropriate to consult as they and the School would wish to ensure that it was in both the School's and the boy's interest that he should join, provided there is a place, and a boy can be clearly seen to be likely to benefit from the continuity and security that QVS will offer. Priority will always be given to the compassionate case.

Thus though there may have been vast changes in the education on offer, and the environment in which the boys live, the underlying principle that the school provides security and continuity of education for the sons of Scottish Servicemen is as fundamental today as it was in 1905; it is a thriving living memorial.