Innholdsfortegnelse for November-December 2021 i History Scotland

Welcome to this 20th anniversary edition of History Scotland. We launched in the October of 2001 and whilst of course Scottish history has changed hugely over those two decades, our core mission remains the same: showcasing the latest research to a worldwide audience of history enthusiasts. Originally we did this solely via the magazine and but over the years we have expanded our offering to include newsletters, a podcast, website and our most recent innovation, History Scotland webinars. I’d like to thank everyone who has played their part in the magazine’s story over the years, particularly our former editors Professor Richard Oram and the late Dr Alasdair Ross, our patrons and editorial board, and of course the current editorial team of Dr Allan Kennedy and Dr Martha McGill. And thank…

From the perspective of the early 2020s, the winter of 2001 feels like a different age. Tony Blair was in Number 10; Jack McConnell was entering Bute House at the head of a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition; the first Harry Potter film was released in cinemas; and, of course, the world was reeling from the 9/11 attacks on the United States and the developing ‘War on Terror’. With all of this going on, people might have been forgiven for overlooking the emergence into the world of a new magazine dedicated to the history, heritage and archaeology of Scotland. For it was in the waning months of 2001 that History Scotland published its first issue. History Scotland magazine The only issue in volume 1 of History Scotland (subsequent volumes, each covering a…

Explore a selection of digital history guides in the History Scotland store: https://scot.sh/hsdownload Edited by Dr Martha McGill reviews@historyscotland.com Scotland: The New State of an Old Nation Murray Stewart Leith and Duncan Sim Manchester University Press, 2020 304 pages Hardcover, £20.00 ISBN: 9781784992552 Looking back to my time as an undergraduate student taking courses in modern Scottish history, I remember the annoyance of reading numerous outdated articles, or works on the UK that made very few references to Scotland. This is why I welcome this new book, edited by Murray Stewart Leith and Duncan Sim, which provides a comprehensive review of Scottish politics, history, society and culture. It is a challenge in an overview work to balance academic analysis and accessibility. The authors should be congratulated on achieving this most…

The Lindsays of Balcarres: A century of an ancient Scottish family in photographs By Ludovic Lindsay Pimpernel Press, £60 ISBN 9781910258576 The author was inspired to write The Lindsays of Balcarres through his interest in photography and his ancestors’ history. Unearthing the family’s albums, he discovered a collection of unique photographs, unexplored for 80 years, which present a fascinating cast of characters and shed light on over 150 years of leisure, travel, industry, relationships and passions in a family that has been at the heart of Scottish history for centuries. The Late Medieval Scottish Parliament: politics and the three estates, 1424-1488 By Ronald Tanner John Donald, £25 ISBN 9781910900703 In this groundbreaking study of the medieval parliament, Roland Tanner gives the Scottish Parliament a human face by examining the actions…

Parish registers are one of the basic sources of Scottish family history research, especially for the period prior to the introduction of statutory registration on 1 January 1855. In family history circles and documents, the terms ‘OPR’ or ‘Old Parish Registers’ are often used. However, OPRs are actually only the parish registers for the Church of Scotland and do not cover the registers of other Protestant Churches or the Roman Catholic Church. When the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU), created their free index on Family Search www.familysearch.org/en it was the Church of Scotland records that were indexed. OPRs are actually only the registers for the Church of Scotland and do not cover the registers of other Protestant churches or the Roman Catholic Church The indexes for Scottish records on Ancestry…

Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw Bt QC is Albany Herald Extraordinary and honorary research fellow in law at the University of Dundee. Gillian Black is professor of Scots private law at the University of Edinburgh and Linlithgow Pursuivant Extraordinary. On page 22, they investigate the significance of an unusual heraldic device created for Sir Walter Scott in 1820. Dr Alastair Mann is a historian of early modern Scotland, specialising in book history, parliament, and the reign of James VII. He is senior lecturer at the University of Stirling and principal investigator for the Leverhulme funded Scottish Privy Council Project. In this issue (page 45), he introduces a major new research project focused on the development and activities of the Scottish privy council from 1692 to 1708. Graham Watson has a…

Editor Rachel Bellerby said: ‘From our very first online Zoom lecture last November, it was immediately apparent that there was a real appetite for expert history presentations delivered to a global audience. It has been a real pleasure to welcome to the digital stage such a range of accomplished historians, who have delivered their lectures in a really engaging manner. ‘We are pleased to present our latest programme and look forward to welcoming history fans from around the world to enjoy exploring a wide range of topics’. See the programme at: www.historyscotland.com/virtual-events/online-lectures…

The Pluscarden rising is one of those little-known events in history that helps illustrate a bigger picture. The rising saw a group of highland landowners, most of whom had signed the National Covenant in 1639 and had fought for the covenanting side, rise in support of the new young king, Charles II. It is only the most recent generation of historians that has begun to see the highlands as fully engaged in Scotland’s civil war of the 1640s. Previous writers generally took the view that highlanders were more concerned with settling old clan scores during a period of political disruption, and more interested in keeping southern garrisons and politics out, than in the political and religious issues of the day. This article looks at some of the individuals and families…

1. HUGH CHEAPE, ‘A CANDLE IN A CASTOCK: A PORTRAIT BY RICHARD WAITT’, ISSUE 1 (2001) The very first article printed in History Scotland, this study by Professor Hugh Cheape explores the significance of a work by the well-known 18th-century portrait painter Richard Waitt. An enigmatic image of a ‘gardener’ brandishing a large, unidentified plant, the portrait had, at the time of publication, recently found its way to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, having previously been in private hands. Suggesting that the painting was connected with Halloween traditions, Cheape demonstrates the value of portraiture as a way of uncovering wider insights into Scottish social and cultural history. 2. ERIC J. GRAHAM AND SUE MOWAT, ‘THE SLAVING VOYAGE OF THE HANNOVER OF PORT GLASGOW 1719-1720’, ISSUE 3:5 (2003) Scotland’s links with…

Classical Caledonia: Roman History and Myth in Eighteenth-Century Scotland Alan Montgomery Edinburgh University Press, 2020 225 pages Hardcover, £75.00 ISBN: 9781474445641 In this engaging and well-researched book, Alan Montgomery invites us to eavesdrop on the fractious debates that animated the antiquarian communities of 18th-century Scotland. This period saw numerous Scottish antiquarians and historians drawn into contentious disputes over the scope, duration and impact of the Roman invasions of Scotland during the first three centuries AD. Had Caledonia become a virtual Roman province with all the accompanying trappings of classical civilisation? Or had brave Caledonia succeeded where so many – including its southern neighbour – had failed, by preventing Rome from subjugating its people? Guiding us through the central participants and contours of the debate, and exploring the motives, methods and…

Reading Early Handwriting, 1500-1700 Mark Forrest British Association for Local History, 2019 87 pages Paperback, £10.00 ISBN: 9780948140044 Reading early handwriting is a difficult task, requiring much practice. There were many styles of writing, and spelling was not standardised in the 16th and 17th centuries. This short and simple guide by Mark Forrest is a perfect resource for local or family historians, students and researchers who are beginning to learn palaeography. It looks at English documents written between 1500 and 1700 and focuses on two writing styles: secretary and italic. It also discusses traditional court hands. This guide is clearly written and offers various useful tips that researchers can consult before jumping into the actual examples. Forrest underlines the importance of looking at every letter in a word and recommends…

SCAPE (Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion) works with the public to research, investigate, interpret and promote the archaeology of Scotland’s coast. Through its work with volunteers across Scotland, and with the University of St Andrews and Historic Environment Scotland (HES), the Scape Trust explores where and how Scotland’s heritage is being affected by natural coastal processes and how climate change may affect this in the future. In this exclusive interview, SCAPE’s director Tom Dawson tells us more about the Trust’s work and how it decides which coastal sites to prioritise for action. How old are the first written records in Scotland that refer to coastal erosion? Coastal erosion is a natural process, particularly prevalent in places comprising mobile sediment. The tide washes away the coast edge and…

When the skyline of Scotland’s towns and cities is viewed today, several architectural features are prominent: church steeples, tower blocks and office buildings all rise above those which surround them. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, however, a type of structure integral to Scotland’s economic and industrial fortunes would also have been seen in large numbers – tall chimneys. Many fascinating stories are associated with tall chimneys, including inspiration from Venetian and Egyptian architecture, world record breaking achievements and connections to an exceptionally diverse range of industries. The earliest tall chimneys in Scotland supported modest industries of the type practiced in small workshops. These would have been found throughout urban and rural Scotland and included enterprises such as blacksmith’s smiddies and small-scale manufacturing. The kilns to support brick,…

Kirkcaldy Civic Society was founded in 1974 as a direct result of public campaign to save the historic Volunteer’s Green For centuries Volunteer’s Green had been common land-the remaining acre of lands given to Kirkcaldy in 1644 by royal charter from Charles I for the common good of the residents of Kirkcaldy. But in 1972 the town council proposed to use a large part of it for a multi-storey car park. Outraged opposition blocked the car park plan and prevented future attempts to exploit the space. The Civic Society was born and ever since, has educated and campaigned with great success. Its latest initiative, Kirkcaldy’s Heritage in 50 Objects, is a web-based project conceived prior to lockdown and launched during it. Volunteer’s Green was a logical and symbolic object number…

Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That Battled to Malta 1942 Max Hastings HarperCollins, 2021 464 pages Hardcover, £25.00 ISBN: 9780008364946 Sir Max Hastings is a renowned historian, having first established his reputation with Bomber Command (1979) and burnished it by his personal involvement as a journalist at the Falklands War. He is best known for his histories of the triumphs and failures of Britain’s army and air force campaigns, so Operation Pedestal is something of a departure for him. He describes the work as ‘my first full-length narrative about the war at sea’ (xxi), and it is notable as a stand-alone (as any pedestal should be) volume, not published to coincide with any anniversary, but as a tribute to the memory of those who took part in a gruelling and bloody…

ONLINE EVENTS Recent archaeological work in Tayside and Fife, 6 and 7 November Join Tayside and Fife Archaeological Committee for their annual conference, with talks by Dr Gordon Noble (University of Aberdeen), David Munro (Kinross Marshall Museum), GUARD Archaeology Ltd, Derek Hall (archaeologist and ceramic specialist). Registration is free and donations are welcome. Visit https://scot.sh/tayside Distant lives: the earliest photographs of St Kilda, 9 November In 1860 Capain F.W.L. Thomas sailed to St Kilda to take the first ever photographs of St Kilda. This is the story of the quest to give these St Kildans back their identity and to tell their story. The speaker is Anne Marie Gibson, an Edinburgh-based producer of documentary-style films for visitor centres and exhibitions. Starts 10.30am. Tickets £9. The lecture will be run online…