On this day in 1695

The Bank of Scotland was formed under the authority of an Act of the Scottish Parliament on 17 July 1695, and it went into operation the following February. It was the first bank to be established in Scotland, with the similarly named Royal Bank of Scotland not founded until 1727.

Bank of Scotland expands

It was a trailblazer in many ways, being the first bank in Europe to issue paper currency and, after establishing branches throughout Scotland, it opened its first outpost in London. In 1959, it was the first UK bank to install a computer to process its accounts centrally.

In 2001, the Bank of Scotland and Halifax merged to form HBOS plc which, in 2008, agreed to merge with Lloyds TSB, making the combined group one of the largest in British banking.
Although a subsidiary of a larger organisation, the Bank of Scotland maintains headquarters on The Mound in Edinburgh.

 

...and on this day in 2003

As well as being one of its co-founders, Walter Perry, who was born in Dundee in June 1921, was the Open University’s first vice chancellor. He was educated at the University of St Andrews and taught at the University of Edinburgh before establishing the Open University in 1969.

University of the air

Perry was interviewed about the Open University by the Illustrated London News on 2 August 1969. When asked about the concept of what was then being dubbed the ‘university of the air’, he explained that “however much you expand the existing university structure in this country, you cannot hope to embrace all those who could benefit from a university education and who could thereby play a bigger part in the life of the country. You can’t afford to neglect the supply of trained brain power. Consequently, the Open University is a method of giving the people who are not caught in the net of the established universities an opportunity to get a higher education, to benefit themselves by it and the country.”

Careful cost balancing

However, he was careful to point out that while much of the ‘teaching’ would be done using television broadcasts, “in the foundation courses there will only be roughly half an hour of radio and half an hour of TV per week for each course [as] radio and TV must be used with very considerable care because it would be ridiculous to use expensive media for things that can be done inexpensively.” Much of the real study would therefore still be paper based.

In founding the university, Perry worked alongside Jennie Lee after whom the institution’s building in Edinburgh was named.

 

...and on this day in 1537

Janet Douglas was burned at the stake on this day in 1537. She’d been accused of murder, witchcraft, and attempting to poison the king, James V.

Janet was Lady Glamis, and the sister of Margaret Tudor’s second husband. Margaret Tudor had ruled Scotland as Queen Dowager until James V had become old enough to rule the country in his own right in the 1510s, and Janet’s brother – the king’s stepfather – would have exerted his influence on the king during his formative years.

When the James V eventually came to the throne, he needed to assert his influence. Unfortunately for Janet, this meant that his attention turned to her family. She was accused of being part of a conspiracy to poison the king, and of having likewise killed her first husband.

She was tried, and there is a suggestion among some quarters that charges of witchcraft were also laid, but this is disputed. Evidence was seemingly hard to come by, and the king resorted to torturing members of her family and staff, who eventually gave him what he wanted, even if it was not the truth. Perhaps inevitably, she was convicted of treason, and sentenced to death.

She was burned at the stake in Edinburgh Castle, aged around 33.