[MEDICINE - IMPOVERISHED GIRLS' HOSPITAL, 1731]. The Rules and Constitutions For Governing and Managing the Maiden-Hospital, founded by the Company of Merchants of Edinburgh, and Mary Erskine, in Anno 1695

Edinburgh: Robert Fleming and Company, 1731. First Edition. Very good. 12mo. xi, [1], 6, 46 pp. Contemporary Augsburg embossed wrappers printed in black, verso of wrappers with black inking from the printing process (not transferred to text), securely stitched. ONE OF THE FIRST HOSPITALS FOR GIRLS OF DESTITUTE MERCHANT FAMILIES, CO-FOUNDED IN 1694 BY A WOMAN INVESTMENT BANKER AND PHILANTHROPIST.

THIS COPY FORMED PART OF A CACHE OF AN EXTRAORDINARY PUBLISHER'S REMAINDER OF THE 1731 "MAIDEN HOSPITAL RULES," DISCOVERED IN 1991, ALL IN FINE OR NEAR FINE CONDITION, AS HERE.

Some dozen copies were bound in contemporary Augsburg decorated (truncated) embossed paper wrappers, and our example is identical to NLS Bdg.s.769/1-3, which was one of three copies bound in "Buntpapier" from the same cache purchased by the Library in the mid-90s (we are grateful to Graham Hogg for this information).

THE PAPERMAKER Johann Michael Schwibecher (or Schwidbecher) was active in Augsburg and his long and distinguished career spanned from at least 1715-1748 (see Haemmerle pp. 229-230). One of the wrappers in the NLS cache was actually signed by Schwibecher (NB: we have handled a copy of the 1731 "Maiden Hospital Rules" bound in an identical sheet). It is unclear why Robert Fleming, the printer/publisher of the "Rules," chose to have copies bound up with imported Augsburg papers instead of utilizing those produced in Scotland. NLS has eight copies, but only three of the them were bound like ours.

MARY ERSKINE (1629-1707) was a Scottish businesswoman, philanthropist, and an early proponent of female education. After the death of her second husband James Hair, a druggist, in 1683 she set up in business as a private banker. In 1694 she generously donated to the Edinburgh Merchant Company's foundation of the Merchant (or Trades) Maiden Hospital. The Trades Maiden Hospital began as a boarding school for "the daughters and granddaughters of decayed craftsmen," i.e. girls who could not be adequately looked after at home. Mary Erskine then purchases a substantial house for the Hospital in 1703, allowing the school to move into its own space. This is the same woman who, ten years earlier, had founded (with Merchants of the town) the Mary Erskine School.

"The Trades MAIDEN HOSPITAL, or more correctly 'The Maiden Hospital founded by the Craftsmen of Edinburgh and Mary Erskine,' is comparatively unknown to our [Scottish] citizens, or is confused with its sister institution the Merchant Maiden Hospital, which has become the Mary Erskine School. Yet for two hundred and fifty years the institution of this name has continued in the midst of our city to fulfill the original terms of its benefaction by maintaining and educating daughters of the [poorest merchant] citizens. That today it remains, with John Watson's School, as the last of the old hospitals to survive changing conditions, would alone give its records a certain importance, but they are valuable also in that they provide a firsthand picture of life in a Scottish charity school in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and at the same time show something of the decline from power of that interesting institution, the Convenery of Trades. The Trades Maiden Hospital was one of the earliest of the hospital or charity schools which formed a distinctive feature of education in the eighteenth century both in England and Scotland. In the former country the movement gave rise to such famous institutions as the Blue Coat School ; in our own land it has left us the great merchant schools and similar endowed seats of higher education." (SOURCE: Rev. Edwin Towill, "The Minutes of the Trades Maiden Hospital" in: Book of the Old Edinburgh Club Vol. 28, 1953, p. 1 et infra).

As the title indications, the present pamphlet contains all the rules and constitutions for governing and managing the Maiden-Hospital; noteworthy are those relating to the Election, Qualifications, Charge, and Duty of Governess; the Qualifications, Election, and Duty of the Schoolmistresses; and the Qualifications and Election of Poor Children.

The constitution of the Maiden Hospital was ratified by the Scottish Parliament on 25 March 1707. It was their penultimate act before being dissolved. The Act is printed in full in the present pamphlet; Mary Erskine's beneficence is duly lauded.

CATALOGUER'S NOTE: We are grateful to Graham Hogg, William Zachs, Simon Beattie, and Spike Hughes for their scholarly generosity. (Inventory #: 4329)