 Thereafter the criteria for selection rested solely on academic ability, selection being made from potential pupils from across the whole County of Lanark - the old County of Lanark being, in terms of population and wealth, the most important county in Scotland and comprising a larger area, including most of the city of Glasgow, than the sum of the subsequent late twentieth century local authority areas.Given the size of the school's catchment area, places at Hamilton Academy were at a premium.Due to its unique academic position in Scotland as the 'County School' of the country's most populous and wealthiest county and the size of its student roll, the Bulletin newspaper reported in its issue of 23 November 1959 that "... there was only one school in Scotland – Hamilton Academy – that had sufficient pupils to qualify its headmaster for such a (special) responsibility salary," and this was noted again in a House of Commons debate on teachers' salaries, 24 February 1960, when Margaret Herbison MP advised that "in the whole of Scotland only the rector of Hamilton Academy (had) qualified for the top grade of teachers' salary."