St Benadicts Abbey School Inverness

[jc26red]

hi...
I've just found out today that a great uncle attended St Benadict's Abbey School, Fort Augustus, Inverness  c1900 (he was 15 and a boarder on the 1901 census)

Does anyone know if and where records would be kept?  I've tried googling around and found out about the history and location of the school but seem to come to a blank as far as old school records.  The school closed in 1999 and has now been turned into flats 

thanks in advance
Jenny

[Maia261]

Hi Jenny,

Records would be kept at the Highland Council Archive, for the moment housed in Inverness Library at Farraline Park (where the bus station is).

If you Google Highland Council Archive you will find contact details for them.

Lynn 

[jc26red]

Thanks Lynn.

I wasn't too sure as their website is hard to navigate to the archives and the catalogue of their holdings. The links on Genuki are broken so they must be reorganising the website.

Jenny

[Maia261]

You're welcome Jenny,

Their website is very hard to navigate and the links have been broken for a good few months now - such a shame when other counties have got their history and genealogy well sorted and easily accessible, with much of it being online but a council as big as our one has next to nothing, very disappointing. Maybe when our new Highland Archive Centre opens Later this year things will improve, but I'm not holding my breath. 

Am Baile is also quite a good source but I never managed to find anything on the Abbey in there, it's also not very easy to navigate.

Lynn

[Gruemach]

There is also a newsletter from the old boys' association (http://www.corbie.com/newsletter_detail.asp?NewsID=19)
and there is a book published on the school.
And you might want to try the Scottish Catholic Archives in Edinburgh above and beyond what Alistair McLeod and Anne Fraser have at the Genealogy Department at the Inverness Library at Farraline Park as Lynn has mentioned.

Gruemach
(For those of you who are Gaelic speakers, you will be able to figure out my anglocised name.)

[jc26red]

thank you Gruemach, I had already come across the Corbie website and browsed the photos etc., The time frame I'm looking at is much earlier and its interesting that the school is reputed to have closed between 1894 and 1920 according the book you mention.
I have the reference of great uncle boarding there in 1901 and his maternal uncle was a priest there at the same time. The maternal uncle had also studied humanities as shown in 1891.

The Scottish Catholic Archives do not have any holdings relevant to the scholars who attended the school.

I think the Inverness library maybe the first port of call for me.

many thanks for responding
Jenny

[Gruemach]

Jenny,

Don't forget the National Library of Scotland...

http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/sba/

Gruemach

[Martin Briscoe]

I was told that the Archives' catalogues are online but I have never managed to find them.  I think I was told that they are on the SCRAN site but I have never found them and it is hard to get anything useful there without subscribing which is sad considering is presumably subsidised by the taxpayer.

It's a pity because I have been able to search the catalogue of every other archive that I have used and we are well served by Am Baile, HER, CANMORE but the Archive lags behind in the level of access.

MB