Talk:Inverness Royal Academy

"Our"
It seems that this article frequently adresses the school as "our" school. Don't mean to be pernickety, but this should be changed. I would but it isn't my school =D --Kryters 02:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Assess
Most of the content of this article appears to have been taken verbatim from the school's prospectus, and is therefore in breach of copyright. The article is likely to be deleted if this problem cannot be solved as a matter of urgency. You need to use independent sources and rewrite in your own words. Dahliarose 15:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Waiting to qualify to edit - and "devandalise" - this article. At my request for help, an Admin has partially protected this article and I need to qualify to edit it. Dcm250451 (talk) 13:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

James MacPherson may or may not have been a pupil. but not of the Academy, which opened in 1792. There is no absolute proof he attended the Inverness Grammar school, but it is demonstrable that when approached for a subscription to the founding of its Academy successor, he did not respond (Directors Minutes Vol 1. Client Account Book of Thomas Gilzean (Cashier to the Academy 1786-1832)) However, what he wrote is not in Gaelic and doesn't constitute an epic called "Ossian". He didn't even claim that. What he did write from the late 1750s onward, publishing first in 1760, (and it was the sensation of late eighteenth century Europe), claimed to be an English translation of Gaelic originals by a bard CALLED Ossian. If the originals existed, he did not produce them. (He was also, incidentally, briefly surveyor general and secretary of West Florida, and spent a year there, continuing to draw his salary as a pension for life as a result}.   Suggest "who published prose writings he claimed to be translations from the ancient Gaelic bard, Ossian." instead.    If anyone gets round to being qualified to edit, that is. Delahays (talk) 20:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC) Delahays

In honesty I should add that a secondary source I have just come across, RG Thorne's article on MacPherson as MP in the HIstory of Parliament, in the volume he himself edited, asserts that MacPhesron WAS a pupil of "Inverness g.s." but gives no source for the claim. His cousin, Sir John Macpherson, was a subscriber to the school, but in his letter of advice to the directors makes no mention of himself having bee a grammar school pupil. Safest position on the claim must be 'not proven'.Delahays (talk) 16:33, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

As should the remarkable Scottish actor Jimmy Chisholm, a pupil between 1968 and 197481.153.173.205 (talk) 22:49, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

The 1805 edition of MacPherson's poetical works has a preface which quotes a biographical account of him in Ruddiman's Magazine of 1777, which asserts he attended the grammar school in Inverness. This may well be the origin of Thorne's note, and MacPherson was as good as anyone at publicity, so he himself may well have been the Magazine's source.Delahays (talk) 07:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Logo/Picture
Not meaning to be persnickety, but the picture representing the school would look so much better if it was the logo of the logo of the school, found here.

http://www.invernessroyal.highland.sch.uk/assets/header_crest.jpg

Editing this in would be met with great appreciation.

Many Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Indigo400 (talk • contribs) 21:39, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The lists of distinguished former pupils need some kind of examination. Duncan MacQuarrie, for example, was and is proud of being a former pupil of Oban High School, not the Royal Academy, where he was a much respected teacher. Many of the former pupils listed as Grammar School attendees are, in fact, Academy pupils of much more recent vintage. Conclusive evidence for the names of Grammar school pupils is hard to come by - there are no surviving class lists, and statements about the education even of well documented inverness-born figures usually proceed on the assumption that they must have been to school, and the school must have been the Academy, or grammar school. Even for most of the Eighteenth Century this is dangerous - there was a choice of schools available. With, especially, women, even in the Academy period, it was, for example, possible to be enrolled for just one class, as. for example, was the pioneer woman doctor, one of the first five ever to be trained in London, and missionary in South Africa, Jane Elizabeth Waterston, who attended for drawing classes only. Delahays (talk) 13:00, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure folk really take much interest in former pupils who have made a success in the performng arts, and they probably didn't get much more than grudging recognition as pupils. But the producer John Doyle is internationally known, even to Wikipedia, and anyone with the slightest interest in opera in the UK over the past forty years and more recently at the Met will have heard of Janis Kelly. The school may not realise it, but it owes them a lot. They should be on the list.Culduthel (talk) 17:43, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

As should the remarkable actor, Jimmy Chisholm81.153.173.205 (talk) 22:50, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Latest Edit: New building
Good to see the article updated as the building has been. I think, though, that the first edit of today (11th October 2016) should be allowed to stand. I think a school equipped with an "acne studio" sounds a jolly useful place! Misha, an interested observer of this and that 21:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TeekeeyMisha (talk • contribs)

Former pupils
I suggest that the heading "grammar school" be replaced at the END of the current list, and on the basis of the evidence led over the past three years and included in "talk", James "Ossian" MacPherson be re-listed as a former pupil under "Grammar school". he is, after all, the only known former pupil of the grammar school whose work acquired a European reputation in his lifetime which has not, so far, entirely vanished. I also suggest that Duncan MacQuarrie be listed as a distinguished former member of staff, and that consideration be given to adding at least the name of one major Scottish landscape painter who taught at the school, and that of A.D. Cameron, the historian, along with that of the former Rector and Gaelic scholar, WJ Watson. There is also the Academy's only Cabinet Minister before Derry Irvine, Disraeli's Advocate General, Edward Strathearn-Gordon, MP and later Law-Lord, who should surely be listed as a former pupil.Delahays (talk) 13:31, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

For a distinguished woman former pupil, once in the drawing class, if nothing else, at least Dr Jane Elizabeth Waterston should be considered. She was one of the very earliest woman doctors, as well as an important medical missionary in Southern Africa, a daughter of the chief executive as he would now be known, of the Caledonian Bank, which still dominates the foot of Castle Street, and a very shrewd letter-writer throughout her life.Delahays (talk) 15:16, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I see the list of former pupils has been to some degree edited, but it still makes no attempt to distinguish between the Academy and its predecessor. Even folk associated with the school in the past fifty years are listed as grammar school pupils - even though the article itself declares that the grammar school ceased to exist in 1792. This does Wikipedia little credit and still less the school itself. And as for the comtinued omission of Jane Elizabeth Waterston, whose name survives in one of the class lists of pupils kept by the school itself, and whose link with early medical training is conformed by her own published correspondence, printed by the Van Riebeck Society in 1983, and almost completely igmared by the Wikipedia article about her - she has one, though it's clearly compiled from an inadequate biographical source - words fail me.Delahays (talk) 00:51, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Words continue to fail me. I have attempted to sort out the confusion in the list of former pupils only to find that three amplified items for which every detail came from THEIR OWN WIKIPEDIA ARTICLES have been picked out in red. Will the centaur responsible for this bottery please explain?Delahays (talk) 11:49, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It was your own edit that broke the previous links - it is you that has caused the problem with the redlinks on this page. Drchriswilliams (talk) 12:09, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If Dr Chris Williams takes to the talk page to remonstrate with me then I shall have to respond in kind. I have deleted my initial intemperate response, to give him a chance to indicate how he wishes to proceedDelahays (talk) 13:52, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have cleaned up some of the mess you had left in this article. Drchriswilliams (talk) 06:25, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

But apparently decided not to include John Doyle, Janis Kelly or Jimmy Chisholm?Delahays (talk) 11:19, 18 December 2018 (UTC)