Innholdsfortegnelse for May-June 2021 i History Scotland

Welcome to May/June History Scotland and I’m so pleased that within the first few pages of the magazine we have an in-depth curator review of a major exhibition due to open at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. As we move towards the summer months, our thoughts can finally turn towards being able to visit our favourite museums, archives, libraries and other attractions once again. As always we’re bringing you a rich selection of history, from across the centuries and around the world, with topics including how artists portrayed the country’s links with slavery, excavations in Leith, the tale of pioneer medical man Charles Maitland, and a look ahead to the release of the 1921 census. Enjoy the issue and see you next time. Warm wishes Subscribers, are you…

Leith has served as the coastal gateway for Scotland’s capital city for centuries, and remains to this day a globally connected port, serving the agricultural, food production and oil and gas industries. It is now also renowned as the retirement home for Her Majesty the queen’s much-travelled royal yacht Britannia. The layout of the current docks represents centuries of industrial development, involving land reclamation, construction and expansion, necessitated by increasing trade, in particular from the 18th century onwards, which required the construction of ever larger and more effective harbour infrastructure. Large parts of Leith’s docks have been de-industrialised in the late 20th and early 21st centuries with the construction of residential and commercial developments. Many of the historic structural elements of Leith’s maritime past have therefore been swept aside, but…

I was effectually cured of all inclination to that sin to which I was so strongly addicted, that I thought nothing but shooting me through the head could have cured me. COLONEL JAMES GARDINER, 1688-1745 It was a hot night in Paris in July of 1719: a Sunday night, but the Sabbath signified nothing in the decadent life of Major James Gardiner, aide de camp to the earl of Stair, a Scot like Gardiner and British ambassador to the court of France under the regent Philippe, duke of Orleans. It was a rare interlude of peace between the two countries, and Gardiner himself was no stranger to war. Born at Carriden in Linlithgowshire on 11 January 1688, he was the son and nephew of soldiers killed on active service, and…

The Ledger of Andrew Halyburton (RH9/1) is a fascinating 16thcentury volume held in the archive of the National Records of Scotland. It is of interest both in terms of the information it contains in relation to Halyburton’s position as Conservator of Scottish Privileges in the Low Countries and in the physical properties displayed in its binding style. Andrew Halyburton held the position of ‘Conservator of Scotch Privileges’ during the late 15th and early 16th century in the reign of James IV. This is at the tail end of a golden time for Scottish trade. Trade was primarily conducted in the city of Bruges and developed from periodic agreements whereby Scotland gave Bruges exclusive rights to purchase staples such as wool, hides, coal and lumber. Based in the Low Countries, Halyburton…

reviews@historyscotland.com Scandal and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: The Life of Jane Cumming Frances B. Singh Boydell / University of Rochester Press, 2020 356 pages Hardback, £90.00 (eBook £19.99) ISBN: 9781580469555 As Scottish historians well know, Scotland’s archives are rich with fascinating material and the legal archives are particularly copious and informative. Plucking Jane Cumming’s case from the archive of the early 19th century, Francis B. Singh has landed on a personal narrative that encompasses historical themes of gender, patriarchy and masculinity, as well as socio-judicial attitudes to female complainers. As an orphan, a bi-racial minor, an outcast and a woman, teenaged Jane first precipitated a cause célèbre in early 19th-century Edinburgh and then, in its aftermath, found herself unable to shake off the notoriety for the rest of her short…

Born and brought up in the highlands of Scotland, Dr David Alston is a freelance historian and author who has been a youth worker in Toxteth (Liverpool), a schoolteacher in Wallsend (Tyneside), and (in the highlands) an adult education organiser, a museum curator, a local authority councillor, and chair of an NHS Board. On page 11, David explores the ways that Scottish artists and artworks handled the relationship between Scotland and slavery, either by depicting slaveholders, plantation life, or enslaved people themselves. Dr Iain A. MacInnes is senior lecturer in History at the University of the Highlands and Islands. His research focuses on warfare and the treatment of rebels in medieval Scotland, with a particular focus on the 14th century. On page 48, we present part 3 of Iain’s five-part…

In Glasgow in 2007 a Black figure re-appeared during the cleaning and conservation of Archibald McLaughlan’s portrait of the tobacco merchant John Glassford and his family. The figure of the young enslaved servant had not been painted out – as was sometimes suggested – but had been obscured by centuries of dirt. It is an apt metaphor for Scotland’s lost awareness of its historical connections with slavery and a reminder of the need for a more general process of ‘cleaning and conservation’ of our heritage. It is more than 20 years since David Dabydeen drew attention to the presence of Black people in 18th-century English art, particularly the complex place of these figures in more than two dozen of William Hogarth’s paintings. There are also Black figures in Scottish art…

Sometimes searching into the past can lead down paths that you had no idea even existed. So it was with the subject of this article, Mr Peter McLagan. I was doing some research on the provision of a clean source of drinking water for my hometown of Bathgate, West Lothian, when I came across references to a Peter McLagan, who had been the local MP between 1865 and 1893. It was his wife, Elizabeth Anne Taylor whom he had married in 1876, who is credited with donating to the town its first ever public fountain in 1878, in celebration of the fact that the then town council had secured the supply of a reliable source of drinking water for the town. So, initially, we had what simply looked like another…

The Galloway Hoard is the richest collection of rare and unique Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland. Buried around the end of the 9th century, it brings together silver, gold and archaeological treasures from Ireland, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and as far away as Asia. It was discovered by a metal-detectorist in 2014 on what is now Church of Scotland land at Balmaghie in Kirkcudbrightshire. Evidence for buildings around the hoard site has been found, but needs further investigation. The hoard was saved for the nation by National Museums Scotland in 2017 after a major fundraising campaign supported by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Artfund and many individual donors. Since then, curators and conservators have been working to clean, conserve and understand the Hoard. The results to date will…

Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) was born at the end of December 1720 and lived for the first 23 years of his life in Italy. In 1744 he travelled to France, and the following year came to Scotland hoping to recover the throne for his father, the exiled James VIII/III. What happened after that has often been related, most recently in the special November-December 2020 issue of History Scotland (http://scot.sh/30HcoKK) commemorating the tercentenary of his birth. Before he left Italy, when he was living in Rome, Prince Charles was the proud owner of a superb set of highland weapons, including a magnificent cuirass and helmet, a dirk, a targe, some pistols, and a broadsword with a silver basket hilt. He also had a tartan suit with gold embroidery…

Smallpox was a dreaded disease, no respecter of status, and responsible for the deaths of millions of people, particularly children. There was no cure or preventative measure available until, 300 years ago in April 1721, Aberdonian surgeon Charles Maitland performed the first inoculation against smallpox to take place in Great Britain. He inoculated Mary, the young daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. When Sir Edward Wortley Montagu was the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Maitland had served as surgeon at the embassy. Whilst there he had not only witnessed inoculation but by his own account, published in 1722, also had some involvement in the procedure when Lady Mary’s young son, also called Edward, was inoculated by a local ‘old woman’. There are two versions of the smallpox variola virus, variola…

What have been the challenges of going from being a museum with over 2.2 million visitors in 2019, to having to close for months on end due to Covid-19 restrictions? We are committed to providing access to the incredible national collections through public display across our museums, so it has been both strange and sad to have had to close our doors for so long. On a practical level, it has meant a significant loss of income and challenges in looking after our collections in a way that is as safe as possible for our staff. We have had to reschedule exhibitions, events, exciting behind the scenes research and conservation work that had been going on as well as all the other issues common to workplaces across the country. Are…