Fettes College is named after its distinguished founder, Sir William Fettes, a man who rose from humble beginnings as an Edinburgh High Street grocer to become the most notable entrepreneur, businessman and philanthropist of his day. 

Devastated at the loss of his only son and heir to typhoid in 1815, Sir William left his considerable fortune to the foundation of a school for the ‘the maintenance, education and outfit of young people’. A charismatic young architect David Bryce was commissioned to design and construct the extraordinary building which opened as a purpose-built school in 1870, initially receiving 53 boys, a mixture of fee-paying and bursary students, under the care of the formidable first Headmaster, Dr Potts.

Sir William did not live to see the school which bears his name completed. The motif of the hard-working bee, seen represented throughout the fabric of the building, was taken from his family coat of arms and gives the school its motto: Industria. But he always maintained that ‘study is not a toil but a recreation to the great…it teaches us the means of happiness’, an ethos which holds as true in the Fettes of today as it always did.