THE photographs in this week’s trip down West Fife's Memory Lane look at the history of Dunfermline College of Hygiene and Physical Training, which was founded in October 1905 in a building in Abbey Park Place, funded by the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust.

It was opened on October 4 by the Marquis of Linlithgow, the Secretary of State for Scotland. Miss Flora Ogsten was the first principal with an annual salary of £225. Twelve female students were enrolled and were quickly nicknamed ‘Hygienes’ or ‘High Jeans’ by the town.

The trust outlined the rationale behind its setting up in their report in 1928: "The need for specially-qualified teachers became increasingly recognised but there was no institution in Scotland for the training of these experts. The trustees, having at their call a splendid gymnasium and swimming pond and the nucleus of a college staff, decided that they would establish a College of Hygiene and Physical Education and grant a diploma to students who successfully completed a two-year course of study thereat."

Our first photograph shows some of the students dancing in 1949 in the garden of what was the original college in Abbey Park Place that later served as hostel accommodation.

A new purpose-built college was opened in 1914 and was situated beside the Carnegie Baths in Pilmuir Street. Our next photograph shows this building as seen from Inglis Street. The building is currently undergoing renovations and refurbishment to create residential accommodation, called, aptly, the 'Carnegie Apartments'.

Our next photograph shows some of the students pictured outside the college in Dunfermline in 1948.

The college outgrew this site by 1950 and relocated, first to Aberdeen and then to Cramond, Edinburgh, in 1966.

Our final photograph shows students graduating in 1971. The college merged with Moray House College of Education in 1987 and later with Edinburgh University in 1998.

Since its foundation, it was regarded as a national institution for teacher training and helped the profession of teaching physical education to become perceived as a respectable career for women.

Sharron McColl, the local studies supervisor at Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries, will be delivering a lecture about Dunfermline College of Education since its inception up to the present day at 1pm on June 23 in the Canmore Room of Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries. Entitled ‘Efforts are Successes’, tickets, priced £3, are on sale in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries.

Sharron would also be grateful for further additions to the collection of college memorabilia they currently have in their collection: “It would be wonderful to find out if anyone in Dunfermline, who perhaps had family members who attended the college in its early days, has any items from that period. If that is the case, we would be delighted to add them to our collection so that future generations are able to access them in the Local Studies Department in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries, situated as it is in the town that the college was founded in."

More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries as well as at Facebook.com/olddunfermline.

With thanks to Frank Connelly.