Heritage Brief on – Lauder Technical School/ Lauder Technical College/Carnegie College.
Research – Carnegie Library Dunfermline – Andrew Carnegie, author Joseph Frazier Wall. Archives held at Carnegie College, Halbeath, Dunfermline.
3 points about George Lauder.
George Lauder 1814 – 1901.
George Lauder was a man ahead of his time. He was an educationalist who persistently campaigned for free secondary and technical education. He was a chartist, who owned a grocer’s shop in Dunfermline High Street in the 19th century, and was an uncle and mentor to the young Andrew Carnegie.
As a chartist he hosted meetings around ‘The People’s Charter’ which was first published by the London Working Men’s Association on 8th May 1838 because of the economic misery and political disillusionment that followed the Reform Act of 1832. Asa Briggs a British historian stated that “Chartism was never a single movement but a combination of reforming groups”. The Charter was used in Lauder’s case at meetings when he was campaigning for a living wage for the working- class. He fought to give working people a voice in their lives through votes for the working -class because only middle -class property owners could vote under the Reform Act 1832 in Britain. He stood up for freedom against slavery.
As a campaigner for education his keen interest was particularly secondary and technical education. George Lauder continually campaigned for the reduction of fees and ultimately for a free secondary and technical school education.
3 points about Andrew Carnegie.
Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919).
In the period that was Andrew Carnegie’s working life in America Andrew he was an Industrialist and also a Capitalist this in turn made him the 2nd richest man in the world in the 19th century.
After he made his money he became a philanthropist, he gave huge sums of money to the building of libraries, colleges and universities and the setting up of Trusts. He was a great benefactor to his birth and childhood town of Dunfermline where he gave money to Trusts, the building of public baths, a library, a concert hall, and Pittencrieff Park to name but a few. He gave £13,000 to the building of Lauder Technical School.
Lauder Technical School was opened in 1899 and named after George Lauder at the request of Andrew Carnegie. This request was unusual because Andrew Carnegie said “I never interfere with any gift I give, but it would give me and Mrs Carnegie genuine pleasure if you would approve of calling this Technical School the Lauder Technical School”.
Quotes from Speech George Lauder (1814 – 1901) asked to be given in his behalf on the Opening of Lauder Technical College. (1899).
“if we have done this for Dunfermline (that is, given it a Technical School) what is Dunfermline going to do for itself”.
Quote from J. F. Kennedy 35th President USA 1961 in his Inaugural address.
“And so my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you: ask what you can do for your country”.
Could Kennedy have read G. Lauder’s speech at some point?
Lauder’s thinking was as relevant in 1899 and the idea good enough to be used in an iconic Presidential address over 60 years later in 1961. In the year 2013 George Lauder’s thinking is as relevant as it was 114 years ago. Certainly a man ahead of his time.