On a visit to Scotland, and the school my great-grandmother attended, I was fortunate to be given access to the school’s archives. Amongst the historic records available was a lefts register.

Lefts registers are educational records which appear to be unique to Scotland, at least being known by that name, and they’re a great resource for family historians. They provide details of students who attended the school in order by the date they left. If you know the school your ancestor attended, they can provide some really useful information.

I found my great-grandmother listed in this lefts register (she left in April 1919), and one of her brothers (he left in 1924), and a cousin (who also left in 1924).

The brilliant thing about lefts registers is the kind of information you can find. In this instance it included: name, address, date of birth, and the date of admission and leaving the school, along with which level or class they were in when they left. This information confirmed for me some of the times and places of events in my great-grandmother’s life.

For many students the register also includes a reason for leaving. For some it’s to attend school elsewhere, or a training college or university, while for others it’s to begin employment, in which case the register may list the occupation and employer. There are other reasons as well, including due to illness.

Lefts registers are kept in different locations depending on where the school was located and how they have managed historic records. I was fortunate that Montrose Academy had its own archives. It was established in 1815 and has a long history, with links to education in the region over centuries.

While some historic records are held by the schools themselves, other schools have records preserved in the local authority’s archives, and sadly some historic records have not been kept. It’s also important to note that many education records haven’t been digitised, and that the type of records vary depending on the time and place, as well as a family’s ability to send children to school based on financial and/or social situation.

School education prior to 1873
Prior to 1873 primary and secondary education was provided principally by the Church of Scotland, other religious denominations and charitable organizations. In many Scottish towns, burgh schools were operated by burgh councils. Many families, who could afford to do so, paid for the services of private tutors. Records created by schools themselves for this period are very few, but details of their administration can often be extracted from the minute books of bodies which ran or supervised them, such as kirk sessions, presbyteries and burgh councils. Family papers may include records relating to private schooling (both at fee paying schools and by private tutor within the home).

School education after 1873
The 1872 Education (Scotland) Act set up a system of local schools controlled by elected local authorities (initially school boards) and funded partly by local rates and partly by pupil fees. From 1873 onwards the records of the administration of schools, in the form of minute books of school boards and later authorities have passed to local authority archives via county council records. In most areas of Scotland the records produced by schools (such as log books and admission records) are still in the hands of the schools themselves. In many cases records are lost when schools close. Some schools have simply destroyed historical records, at the whim of head teachers, over the years. In the 1980s and 1990s some local authority archives attempted to preserve school records for their areas by systematically approaching schools to ask for the transfer of school records to archives.

Scottish Archive Network, ‘Scottish School Records’, https://www.scan.org.uk/knowledgebase/topics/schoolrecords_topic.htm , accessed 23 March 2024.

I’m grateful to have found a lefts register which mentions my great-grandmother, and grateful to the school she attended for preserving and providing access to the archives so I could see it.

If you have Scottish ancestors it’s worth taking some time to look for lefts registers, and similar records. You just might find new clues for your research.

Selected references

National Records of Scotland, ‘Education Records’, https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/research-guides/research-guides-a-z/education-records, accessed 14 January 2024.

Scottish Archive Network, ‘Scottish School Records’, https://www.scan.org.uk/knowledgebase/topics/schoolrecords_topic.htm , accessed 23 March 2024.

Register of Lefts, 1917-1925, Montrose Academy.