King James VI Hospital

These notes are based on lectures given by Rhoda Fothergill - they were made by a local resident of Perth - Alan Darling - and have been passed to this website.

The Hospital of Perth was established when the King was still an infant during the Regency of the Earl of Moray on the 9th August 1569. On reaching the age of 21, King James VI granted a second charter in 1587. Both charters were conformed by Parliament at the same time. The charters “to provide by all honest ways and means, an Hospital for the poor, maimed, distressed persons, orphans and fatherless children within the burgh”, and "therefore given, granted and disposed to the poor members of Jesus Christ now and for all time the Lands, Tenements, Kirks, Orchards, Crofts, Fruits and Duties” which before the Reformation pertained to the Monasteries, Chapels or Colleges and Altarages within the Burgh of Perth.

Perth was well endowed with Religious Establishments: Blackfriars Monastery, Whitefriars Monastery, Greyfriars Monastery and the Carthusian Monastery, St. Leonard’s Chapel, St. Magdalene’s Chapel, St. Ann’s Chapel, Our Lady’s Chapel, St. Catherine’s, St. Paul’s and Loretto Chapels.

It appears from the Hospital Records that the first Hospital House for the care of the poor was Our Lady’s Chapel at the “Shore” which was enlarged “a building three storeys high and containing many spacious apartments” and would appear to have been in use in 1597.

The Managers, (the elders of the Kirk) seem to have carried out their duties until Cromwell occupied the city and demolished the building in 1651. The Managers carried on without a building until 1750 when this Hospital House was built on the grounds of the Charterhouse (Carthusian). This building housed a Charity School as well as a Charity House and later actually a reformatory and a “Correction House” or house for the vagrant. Bed and bedding was provided together with kitchen utensils and brewing equipment and tools for the industrial school.

In 1813 owing to financial difficulties the inhabitants were placed on an outside footing and given a certain sum weekly for their keep and this is how the Hospital is run at the present time.

The building was refurbished in 1974 and now contains 21 well appointed flats.

Additional Note: The present day building began construction in 1749. In 1973/4 a conversion to flats took place and it still remains in this mode today. The original Boardroom was left unchanged - it comprises panelled walls bearing the names of the original donors.