John Watson’s Institution Home

Vans Hathorn, the Father of John Watson’s Institution, served as its treasurer until he died, full of years, in late 1839. Two years earlier, at a meeting of the Directors, a motion was presented by the Deputy Keeper to the Signet as follows:

..the Directors of John Watson’s Institution impressed with feelings of deep gratitude to Mr. Hathorn who has so long and so faithfully discharged the duties of Treasurer to the Institution request Mr. Hathorn to sit to an eminent artist for a full length portrait to be hung up in a conspicuous situation in the Institution.

The “eminent artist” would be (later, Sir) James Watson Gordon, the successor in Scotland to Sir Henry Raeburn in portraiture, and directors’ minutes of January 1838 reported the portrait to be “well under way”. By January 1839 the picture was completed and hung in the chapel of the Institution.

The portrait would become an intensely familiar and friendly presence to pupils at the Institution for the next 135 years, to the extent that The Levite would even publish lighthearted articles puportedly written by Van Hathorn’s shade.

Following the closure of the School in 1975, the painting passed into the ownership of descendants of Hathorn, who have had the picture cleaned and restored. It is hoped to arrange the return of the picture to Edinburgh early in 2026.