Innholdsfortegnelse for March-April 2023 i History Scotland

In 1987, Hadrian’s Wall was declared a World Heritage Site. It was followed by the Upper German-Raetian Limes in 2005 and then the Antonine Wall in 2008. Now, all the Roman frontier from the mouth of the River Clyde to the fort of Iža in Slovakia is a World Heritage Site and plans are in progress to extend this accolade to the Black Sea. Early in this process, it was realised that there was a need to explain to politicians, state administrators, archaeologists, local people and, not least, UNESCO what we were seeking to achieve. And so, in 2005 we published a booklet in Arabic, English, French and German explaining what Roman frontiers were, their history, how they have Prince Hassan signs copies of Frontiers of the Roman Empire: The…

In the mid-1970s there were three professional television channels in Britain. BBC1 and BBC2 served up centralised public service broadcasting, television that was entertaining but also educational and informative.The third channel (STV, Border, Grampian, or even Ulster, depending on where you got your signal from in Scotland) was commercial, and focused on entertainment and local news. Television had been broadcast in Scotland via the Kirk O’Shotts transmitter since 1952, but in areas where reception was poor, or where it was felt image quality could be improved, cable television emerged, often sited around housing developments. Cable TV providers saw an opportunity to diversify programming on a pay-television basis and lobbied for greater freedom to be able to do this. In England, the Conservative government offered cable providers a three-year licence (1972-75)…

The National Records of Scotland (NRS) have released over 9,000 volumes of enumeration district books, comprising 200,000 images of 4.8 million individual records from the 1921 census on their online research service ScotlandsPeople (www. scotlandspeople.gov.uk). These add to the census returns already available on the website covering every ten years from 1841. For every census year, an enumerator delivered a form, known as a schedule, to the head of each household to complete with information of everyone who stayed in that dwelling on census night, which was always a Sunday. The schedules were collected by an enumerator a few days later, copied into enumeration books and the schedules destroyed. The pages from the census can now be seen online as full colour images. The 1921 census revealed that the population…

The Enderby bark shield and its reconstruction, 7 March This talk by Sophie Adams for the First Millennia Study Group is open to all and starts at 6pm. Lecture Theatre B, University of Edinburgh, 40 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JX The workers who built the University of Glasgow, 1867-71, 23 March Joseph Sharples, curator of Mackintosh collections at the Hunterian, uncovers the fascinating story of the hundreds of masons, joiners, bricklayers and labourers who were drawn from across the British Isles to work on George Gilbert Scott’s new university; one of the biggest building projects in Victorian Scotland. Their itinerant careers offer vivid, human insights into the hidden world of Victorian construction. Starts 7.30pm. £5 entry/£2 students. Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP; website: https://bit.ly/sharpleshs Witchcraft in the…

Falkirk History Society was formed in 1981 to provide a forum for people with an interest in the history of the Falkirk area; that is, what used to be called east Stirlingshire. Nowadays, the society also covers the historic town of Bo’ness and surrounding villages, formerly in West Lothian but since 1975 part of Falkirk district. The group currently has over 200 members and is involved in many activities, The wide range of the society’s activities includes regular meetings, guided walks in the Falkirk area, field trips, research and publication, and heritage-related campaigns. The society has acted as partner to commercial book publishers on several occasions where local history topics were involved. Copies of the society’s journal, Calatria, can be read in branches of Falkirk public library. A full index…

What was the archaeology scene like in 2009 when ARCH was established? There was already a substantial heritage community in 2009 in the highlands, and one which was growing. In part this was due to the annual Highland Archaeology Festival organised by Highland Council (now in its 29th year). Many local groups formed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, some regional, others local, and there are currently around 100 local groups and over 50 museums and archives. Many groups formed in part due to courses provided by universities and providers such as the Workers Educational Association (WEA). I was a tutor at the WEA in the early 2000s, offering popular archaeology courses, taking up much of their liberal arts budget. As a result, I approached two colleagues to form…

As part of East Lothian Council’s history and archaeology fortnight in September - an annual celebration of the county’s rich and varied heritage - the 1722 Waggonway project once again conducted a community excavation on a site of interest relating to Scotland’s earliest railway. The project was established in 2017 to celebrate the history of the Tranent–Cockenzie waggonway through research, archaeology and community engagement. Since then, the group’s archaeologists have conducted six seasons of archaeological digs with the help of community volunteers, supported by East Lothian Council, Salt of the Earth Heritage Connections, The Battle of Prestonpans (1745) 1772 Waggonway project volunteers and team members at the site Heritage Trust, The Weir Trust and many other heritage partners. CLICK HERE TO VIEW GALLERY The 2022 dig Following excavations in 2021…

Today, online petitioning makes it easy for citizens to express political opinions. Organised campaigns aim to influence policy with thousands of signatures and a well-timed press release. But this apparently ubiquitous practice was not always so accessible. Scotland’s first large-scale petitioning campaigns appeared in the 17th century, and when the authorities realised the potential power of participatory petitioning, they sought to shut down these assertive new practices. A closer look at these events provides a reminder that modern petitioning practices were hard-won. During the 17th and early 18th centuries, public petitioning began to establish itself as one of the most powerful mechanisms by which ordinary Scots could express political opinions and put pressure on their rulers – a development that was distinctly unwelcome to successive Scottish monarchs. Professor Karin Bowie…

The outbreak of the Highland War on 22 March 1689 came with the eruption of fighting on the streets of the Scottish capital. 6,000 volunteers, mostly composed of Presbyterians from the western shires, began to encircle the formidable Edinburgh Castle, and the resulting siege, which lasted until June, saw the first shots fired in a new Scottish civil war. Although the first Jacobite rising has been previously portrayed as an insular Scottish affair, the first part of this series demonstrated that the catalyst for these events lay far beyond the country’s border. The sudden nature of civil conflicts often leaves one or both sides unprepared, and the Highland War would prove no different. Both sides had a small corps of forces at their disposal at the outset of the conflict,…

In 2022, Cumnock History Group was presented with the John Strawhorn Memorial Quaich by the Ayrshire Federation of Historical Societies in recognition of ‘outstanding work in preserving the history and heritage of Cumnock’. Two National Lottery Heritage funded research projects have recently been undertaken: ‘Pennylands World War II camp’, recording details of a military facility located on nearby Dumfries House estate which served a variety of purposes during and immediately after the war; and the ‘Ploughing Up Our Past’ farming project, acknowledging the rich farming land and agricultural activity in the area surrounding Cumnock.This is the subject of a new book, available from the society’s online shop: https://cumnockhistorygroup.org/shop-products/. The group’s website cumnockhistorygroup.org is full of information and photographs about the history of Cumnock.The site is regularly updated and is fully…

There are few historical subjects as big or as controversial in Scotland than the involvement of its citizens in African slavery. Since the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007, research and publication on this subject has increased. Individual case studies may not be typical, but the Slave Legacies database (www.ucl. ac.uk/lbs) provides statistical security, highlighting thousands of individuals who ‘owned’ Africans. In his 2015 book Recovering Scotland’s Slavery Past, Sir Tom Devine suggested that those who had contributed to the volume ‘have not engaged in any ordinary academic exercise. Its findings may provoke argument and controversy well beyond the world of scholarship’. From a public perspective, there has been an ongoing cycle of media attention, often linked to statues, street names and buildings. Over the past…

Written in the hand of Sir Walter Scott, the manuscript will be on display at the permanent ‘Treasures of the National Library of Scotland’ exhibition from March 2023. The manuscript was among the many literary treasures that were held in a private collection called the Honresfield Library. Formed in the 19th century by mill owner William Law, the library’s contents were kept hidden from all but a few scholars until recently. The items were due to be sold at auction in 2021 and, fearing they would be returned to private hands and possibly taken overseas, the library’s contents were purchased by a UK-wide consortium of organisations following an international fundraising campaign. The collection was renamed the Blavatnik Honresfield Library in tribute to its majority donor. The manuscript is one of…

From early on and throughout Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the IRA’s propaganda machine portrayed Scottish troops deployed there as sectarian. This was always an oversimplification. Religion had no part in army recruitment in Scotland and the Parachute Regiment, arguably the most violent unit to serve in the Troubles, were never represented as the product of a sectarian society. What was true was that in 1969 the army still had a strong nucleus of officers and NCOs with recent experience of tougher and more brutal operations during Britain’s long retreat from empire in colonies like Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and Aden. Scottish soldiers had without any doubt been part of this. The end of empire? The Second World War increasingly as it went on posed questions about Britain’s imperial role. After the United…

By the later 10th century, the Scottish throne was the object of bitter rivalry between two competing branches of the royal family. On the one side were the descendants of King Constantine I (d.876), and on the other were the successors of Constantine’s brother, Kind Aed (d.878). The succession swung between these two lineages, but in 971, the crown was inherited by a member of Constantine’s line, Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Choluim), who managed to put a temporary halt to the infighting by ruling for more than 24 years. After a reign spent expanding royal influence in Strathclyde and Lothian, while also patronising the Church – especially in Brechin, where he founded a monastery – Kenneth II met his end in 995.The earliest accounts of his death mention only…

The SLHF 2022 AGM was held on 24 October, on Zoom, and was well attended. Two trustees stood down from the committee and one new nomination was accepted. It was agreed that subscription rates will remain unchanged for the membership year 2023-24. Plans are in hand for a conference in late April 2023, entitled ‘science, engineering and technology’, to be held in Perth on Thursday 27 April 2023. This will be an all-day opportunity for members and friends. Details and booking arrangements are available at www.slhf.org/events. The latest edition of ‘Clish Clash’, our bi-monthly e-newsletter for members, is now on the Scottish Local History Forum website www.slhf.org, where it is accessible to all. Content includes links to information about events, activities and podcasts, including one to the National Library of…

In these columns I have inevitably tended to focus on the longer, high-profile volumes which make up the backbone of the Society’s publication list, so it is a pleasure to be able to turn in this issue to a too-often neglected genre: the miscellany volume. As I write this, I am assembling materials for Miscellany XVII which will continue a tradition begun in 1893 with Miscellany I – edited by my distinguished predecessor, Thomas Graves Law – when it was concluded that a venue was required for such fragments of the Scottish historical record as might be deemed worthy of publication but which were clearly too small individually to make up a whole volume. Miscellany V, under consideration here, speaks nicely to this issue’s article on the Jacobite spy Sir…