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William Harvey was the son of Alexander Harvey in Mains of Grandhome, and brother of Peter Harvey of Ardo and James Harvie of Potterton (dead by 1844). He does not appear to have married. He owned the estate of Bellfield or Beedlieston of Dyce, and in 1844 he mortified £6,500 to be applied 1/3 to a Deaf and Dumb Institution in Aberdeen, and 2/3 to a Female Penitentiary. He added to this sum in 1853, and died not long after (Beedlieston was let to a Mr. James Campbell from 1854). His trustees not only managed this mortification but also retained the estate under tenants for the benefit of the trust.
The Aberdeen Deaf and Dumb Institution was founded in 1819 (for further details see MS 3428). Harvey recommended a pupil to the institution in 1853, and Harvey's Trust funded some pupils there from 1857 (see minute book MS 3428/1). After the Girls' Reformatory vacated their building in Mount Street, the Deaf and Dumb Institution moved in in 1901. In 1921 the Institution was taken over by the Education Authority and left Mount Street. Monies from the Trust were thereafter applied to the Education Authority's institution.
The Girls' Penitentiary was founded before 1851, and the trustees took over direct management in 1852. It was well established by 1859 as an 'Industrial Asylum for the Rescue and Reformation of Females of dissolute habits'. Francis Edmond, advocate, feued the trustees land in Mount Street, Aberdeen, and they fitted up a building there for 60 inmates, for 'the reception and detention as a middle place between the prison and Society for young girls who have fallen into or are verging towards crime'. Application was made to H.M. Inspector of Reformatories for a licence, which he agreed was appropriate but recommended that there should be segregation between 'the Vicious Class ... and the merely Criminal Class'. However, when the licence was granted in 1862 the institution was turned into a Girls' Reformatory, and expenses were met by a government grant, so that the Trustees, instead of running the institution, received rent from the government for the building. Money from the trust was instead applied to various related causes, such as missionary work in Aberdeen 'for the reclamation of fallen women', and the Seabank Rescue Home (formerly in Holburn Street as the Home for the Rescue of Fallen Females, but following a donation from John Gordon of Pitlurg Seabank House, 31, King Street, was purchased in 1871; taken over by the Episcopal Church in 1921), as well as to the Mount Street asylum. The Mount Street building was vacated in 1921.
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