Next Monday marks 150 years of the Nicolson Institute, the largest secondary school in the Western Isles.
The school opened in February 1873 with around 105 pupils attending classes.
Former members of staff are invited to a ceremony commemorating the anniversary on the morning of 27 February.
That evening, BBC Alba broadcasts a programme about the school. Journalist and former pupil, Ruairidh Maciver goes on a journey of discovery, from the Opium Wars in China to the cotton plantations of America’s Deep South, as he asks how this history should be marked today.
An article on the Nicolson’s website traces the school’s beginnings towhen five brothers called Nicolson from Stornoway donated money to help its establishment.
The second youngest of these bothers, Alexander Morison Nicolson, is considered to be the founder of the school.
When he was tragically killed by a boiler explosion on board a ship in Shanghai harbour at the age of 33 years, he left almost £2000 in his will to found a school in his native town "for the education and rearing of destitute children, in the hope that I may be indirect means of rendering some assistance to the children of some of my oldest acquaintances".
Nothing of the original school building which opened in 1873 remains though the clock tower extension -
The school was renamed The Nicolson Institute by a decree issued by the Court of Session in 1901.
For its first twenty years the school was only a primary school. Gradually secondary classes were established until the school offered a full P1 -
In 1969 the school became purely secondary when the primary department became a school in its own right and moved to a purpose-
A modern new school opened on the same site in August 2012.
Nicolson Institute to mark 150th anniversary
20 February 2023
The present day school