St Mungo's Academy is a Roman Catholic, co-educational, comprehensive, secondary school located in Gallowgate, Glasgow. The school was founded in 1858 by the Marist Brothers religious order.
The debate team at St Mungo's were the first Scottish team to represent the UK at the World Parliamentary Debate Competition, which they won. They were congratulated by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
History
The founding
St Mungo's Academy was founded by the Marist Brothers in 1858 at 96 Garngad Hill, Glasgow to educate poor Catholic boys, largely Irish immigrants or their children. The school was named for the patron saint of Glasgow, Saint Mungo, and had ambitions to create a Catholic professional class by educating the boys to secondary level and prepare them for university studies. Some of its students pursued entering priesthood or other religious orders.
Marist Brothers played a large role in shaping the educational and social life of the Catholic residents of Glasgow in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to founding St.Mungo's Academy they were active in the running and staffing of the primary schools of St. Mungo's, St. Alphonsus’, St Patrick's, St Mary's and the Sacred Heart as well as the Junior Secondary schools of St. Mark's and St. Mary's. A Marist Brother, Brother Walfrid, also founded Celtic F.C. in 1888.
1860–1949
After only two and half years the school moved to St. Mungo Street, Townhead, and in 1883 overcrowding led the school to move again, this time to Parson Street also in Townhead where it remained until 1973. In the wake of the Education Act of 1918 the demand for admission to the school surged. In 1919 the school was absorbed into the state system, while retaining its Roman Catholic character under the running of the Marist Brothers.
The school roll increased from 350 to 580 and within 10 years stood at 1,147. With access to the school opening up, more lay teachers were recruited. These included the brothers Colm and Willie Brogan. Until the 1930s many boys who attended the school came from beyond Glasgow. Pupils travelled daily from Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Stirlingshire, Ayrshire and Dunbartonshire due to the lack of Catholic secondary schools in these parts.
During these years the school population also reflected a migration into the city from the Highlands, Italy and after the Second World War, Poland. During this period former pupils began to return to the school to teach.
In 1923 the school motto 'Nil sine labore' was included in the new badge. The motto came from two lines in one of Horace’s Satires ‘Nil sine magno, Vita labore dedit mortalibus’. The motto means Nothing without work. As a result of the increasing numbers of pupils a new annex, St. Kentigern's (formerly Alexander's School) in Duke Street, was purchased. St. Mungo's Academy was transferred to Glasgow Corporation in 1918 and nominal fees were abolished in 1928. Before the Second World War St. Mungo's was not a neighbourhood school but a selective one with a highly competitive entrance exam.
According to at least 108 former pupils were killed during World War II. One of those, John Gerard Woods, was posthumously awarded the MC in 1945 for gallant and distinguished service in Burma. Most of the school's casualties saw service in the RAF. There is a war memorial located in the school.
1950–1998
Further increases of the school population in the early 1950s required the use of additional annexes, including, directly across the road, Barony Street (the former Martyrs' Public School, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh), Kennedy Street Primary School (built in 1875) which was shared with the City Public School, and Rigby Street in Carntyne which in 1954 housed two "prep" (preparatory) classes and two first year and two-second year classes, under the local headship of Mr. Sweeney. Brother Clare (the historian James E. Handley) was the overall headmaster of the academy at this time. The Rigby Street annexe was later used by St. Gregory's Secondary Cranhill.
During the late 1960s the Secretary of State for Scotland, William Ross, mandated changes to Scottish secondary education. Glasgow Corporation was committed to this system of rigid catchment areas using existing and planned new facilities. As a result, in 1967 St. Mungo's Academy was facing a future without a catchment area as soon as four new Catholic secondary schools would be completed to service its districts. In addition, the school lacked facilities and was overcrowded.