Gilbertfield House School

Gilbertfield was established in 1863 at the private initiative of John Adams “to supply a want hitherto felt in Hamilton and its neighbourhood”[1] and occupied premises which he had recently bought and enlarged on High Patrick Street.

He conducted this fee-paying establishment in tandem with his headmastership of St John’s Grammar School, a Free Church foundation in Hamilton with over 400 pupils.

Many of his private students had previously attended St John’s and proceeded to Gilbertfield for higher education, but he also attracted (and offered boarding for) boys from families based further afield including continental Europe, India and the Caribbean.

[4] From the outset it had English, Classics, Modern Languages (“French and German read and spoken daily”), Mathematics, and Writing Departments, taught painting and drawing, and provided instruction in dancing, deportment, gymnastics and fencing.

Among other siblings who attended Gilbertfield were John Henry Muirhead and his three gifted brothers[14] and David Livingstone’s sons Thomas, who captained the school’s cricket eleven, and Oswell, who won numerous academic prizes.