ABSTRACT
Nonconformity can have no better exemplar than the Scottish schoolmaster who wrote these words: ‘I shall create a School … which shall present a picture of a community to the utmost limits of its power conceding nothing to the spirit of mere usage.’ 2 This uncompromising statement came from the pen of Hely Hutchinson Almond (1832–1903). From 1862 until 1903 he was headmaster of a small private school called Loretto, situated on the southern outskirts of Musselburgh, near Edinburgh. By the end of his life the school was famous.
