Hamilton Academy as a "remarkable school" with "a formidable academic reputation" and mentions the large annual intake from Hamilton Academy to the University of Glasgow with which the Academy had a particularly long and sustained relationship; a yardstick as measure of its achievements year-on-year being the number of University of Glasgow scholarships won by its students. It usually beat all other schools, by this measure at least. Between 1940 and 1950, Hamilton Academy headed the annual Glasgow University Bursary list on three occasions. Leading the Glasgow University Bursary list again in 1958, in 1959 the Glasgow Evening Times newspaper noted that "Hamilton Academy have scored a triumph by securing 16 places in the first 100. Last year (1958) they led the field with 13 places in the first 100. Next best are Hutchesons' Boys Grammar School, Glasgow, with eight places, and St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, follow with seven." Topping the Glasgow University Bursary List in 1964 and again in 1965, the Evening Times wrote that Hamilton Academy's "reputation is among the highest in the country." In 1966 the same newspaper reported that "for the third year in succession Hamilton Academy has gained the highest number of places in the Glasgow University Bursary Competition. The Academy's old rivals Hutchesons' Boys' Grammar School came second," and in 1967 the Glasgow Herald noted that "Hamilton Academy – with the highest number of pupils for some years now in the first 100 places in the Glasgow University Bursary Competition – has an extremely high and far-flung academic reputation." In 1969 Hamilton Academy pupils took five of the top ten places in the Glasgow University Bursary List. Such were the school's achievements in university entrance examinations that as late as 1988, Hamilton Academy was remembered (in a House of Lords debate) by Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove as " (having had) one of the best records in the whole of Scotland." In session 1948–49 the Snell Exhibitioner from the University of Glasgow to Balliol College, Oxford, was a former pupil of the Academy as were, among others, Matthew Baillie, Snell Exhibitioner in 1779, and Sir Edward Hamilton Wallace, Snell Exhibitioner in 1893. From numerous endowed funds, as an academic incentive the school awarded boy and girl Dux medals, the Blacklock Bursary (both Dux and Bursary erected in memory of James Blacklock, rector 1863–1897); subject-specific medals, and Memorial Prizes, including the Dr. James S. Dixon Bursary, endowed