November-December 2022

History Scotland

The world's premier Scottish history magazine

History Scotland1 min read
From The Editor
Welcome to our November/December issue, with Mary Queen of Scots as our cover star. The Stewart queen has featured on our cover several times over the years, a testament to her continued appeal. This time, we’re looking at the results of a seven-year
History Scotland2 min read
Patrons
Christopher Smout Historiographer Royal Elizabeth Ewan University of Guelph Richard Oram University of Stirling Murray Pittock University of Glasgow EDITORIAL BOARD FIND OUT MORE AT: HTTP://SCOT.SH/HIS-BOARD Mr Derek Alexander Archaeologist, Nationa
History Scotland1 min read
Meet The Contributors
Dr Ewan Gibbs is lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow. He is a scholar of working-class politics and protest, deindustrialisation and the politics of energy transitions, with expertise in oral history and archival rese
History Scotland2 min read
Historic Children’s Home Archive Opens With Donation From Former Resident
Ron Aitchison, who spent his childhood in the care of Aberlour orphanage in the 1950s and 1960s, welcomed the new catalogue created by the University of Stirling by donating a number of his own items to the collection. The archive is the result of a
History Scotland1 min read
One Million Newspaper Pages Free To Access From British Newspaper Archive And British Library
Together, the British Newspaper Archive and the British Library are committed to releasing a total of five million free pages over five years, which can be accessed online on the British Newspaper Archive website and on FindMyPast. Much of this conte
History Scotland1 min read
Call For Coastal Heritage Survey Volunteers
Now, volunteers are invited to take part in the final survey of the year on 15-18 October at Collington-Newburgh. Scape Trust works with the public to research, investigate, interpret and promote the archaeology of Scotland’s coast. The surveys invol
History Scotland1 min read
Demolished Victorian Jute Mill To Serve A New Purpose
Wallace Craigie Works spinning mill was built in 1836 and played an instrumental part in Dundee’s success in the jute industry, one of many mills that helped the city earn its ‘Juteopolis’ title. The mill was run for more than a century by family fir
History Scotland2 min read
Key George IV Edinburgh Visit Item Discovered On Eve Of Visit Anniversary
CLICK HERE TO VIEW GALLERY T his August marked 200 years since the visit, and while Museums & Galleries Edinburgh were marking the visit with various events, this rediscovery was entirely coincidental. While sorting through files and boxes in the Mus
History Scotland3 min read
Winter Archaeologies
From one perspective, as a field archaeologist, winter presents certain challenges.With frozen soils, ground covering snowfall and biting winds, it can make archaeological investigations much more difficult than in summertime. You might hope that a r
History Scotland3 min read
SPOTLIGHT ON… Uist Community Archaeology Group
UCAG – Uist Community Archaeology Group – is a recent iteration of the local archaeology group, which came into being in 2019, replacing Access Archaeology which had become inactive, save for a few active individuals. We chose a great time to start a
History Scotland9 min read
The Isle Of Lismore Lighthouse And Its 19th-century Keepers
The south end of the isle of Lismore lies at a major branching of the seaway going north: the Sound of Mull on the way to the Western Isles; the main branch of Loch Linnhe (the Lynn of Morvern), leading to Fort William and the Caledonian canal; and t
History Scotland13 min read
The Bandit King
Robert ‘Rob Roy’ MacGregor (1671-1734) is undoubtedly the most famous outlaw in Scottish history. This ‘Scottish Robin Hood’ is often described as a bandit or brigand, part of the same criminal fraternity as, for example, Rome’s Marco Sciarra (d.1593
History Scotland4 min read
The Logarithmic (equian Gular) Spiral
As one of the last surviving members of the once illustrious medical and scientific family of Goodsir, it gives me great pleasure to add my perspective on the logarithmic (equiangular) spiral and the importance it held for my kinsman, the esteemed Pr
History Scotland13 min read
Coal Country: Deindustrialisation And The Making Of Contemporary Scotland
On Sunday 12 September 2021, several hundred people gathered at the northern edge of the Lanarkshire village of Moodiesburn. Local school children, representatives from the Church of Scotland and Catholic Church, and people of all ages from the surro
History Scotland13 min read
Selkirk, Scotland And The South Pacific: The Buccaneer Behind Crusoe
13 December 2021 marked 300 years since the death of Alexander Selkirk, the monarch of all he surveyed, the originator of Daniel Defoe’s most memorable (alongside the incomparable Moll Flanders) fictional creation Robinson Crusoe. There can be few Sc
History Scotland5 min read
Memorialising Mary Queen Of Scots
Mary Queen of Scots (1542- 87) had a short and difficult personal reign over Scotland between 1561 and 1567, and one that arguably had little long-term impact on Scotland’s political and cultural development. However, her subsequent role in popular c
History Scotland12 min read
Putting Cape Wrath Back On The Map
For those of us who enjoy collecting old maps, the study of those of Scotland is particularly rewarding because they contained so much that was inaccurate for so long. In 1734, John Cowley published a most unusual chart titled A Display of the Coasti
History Scotland3 min read
...david II And Margaret Logie
British history has had no shortage of scandalous royal marriages, and many of these remain widely discussed to this day. The same cannot be said, however, of one of the Scottish royal family’s earliest matrimonial controversies: the 14th-century uni
History Scotland8 min read
The Eyesore And The Emperor’s Sword: A Highlander In 19th-century Delhi
No-one reading this article is likely to have heard of Major Robert Macpherson of Benchar – nor is there any reason why they should, for Robert’s entire existence is enshrined in two letters, a will and a sword.Yet Robert Macpherson perfectly encapsu
History Scotland3 min read
The Black Book Of Taymouth A Genealogical Treasure
The Campbells of Glenorchy, a cadet branch of the clan Campbell, was one of the most successful and formidable noble families in 16th- and 17th-century Scotland, straddling the Gaelic and lowland worlds and acquiring extensive territories in central
History Scotland7 min read
The 1745 Rising reassessed
Explore a selection of digital history guides in the History Scotland store: https://scot.sh/hsdownload Reminiscences of a Jacobite: The Untold Story of the Rising of 1745 Michael Nevin Birlinn Ltd (2020) pp. 288 Hardback, £25.00; paperback, N/A;
History Scotland2 min read
Recently Published
Scottish colonial literature: writing the Atlantic, 1603-1707 By Kirsten Sandrock Published by Edinburgh University Press at £19.99 (paperback) ISBN 9781474464017 This book focuses on three undertakings at Nova Scotia (1620s), East New Jersey (1680
History Scotland1 min read
Spotlight on… Abertay Historic al Society
It has fulfilled this remit in a number of ways, including organising a diverse programme of regular lectures and publishing new books on local history. More than 60 books have been published, including Creatures of Fancy: Mary Shelley in Dundee. Det
History Scotland2 min read
Scottish Local History Forum
The 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Scottish Local History Forum (SLHF) will take place online at 6pm on 24 October. Anyone can attend, although only individual members and those representing organisational members can vote. Further details are av
History Scotland5 min read
Diary Dates
Lecture: the battle of Alamein, 2 November October 2022 sees the 80th anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein. To remember this famous battle and the men of Perthshire who were involved, The Black Watch Museum delves into a rich selection of memoirs
History Scotland2 min read
How To Find Evidence Of An Ancestor’s Passport
Like many people I had not been overseas since prior to 2020 and the commencement of the Covid pandemic, only very recently using my passport once again. Passports as a requirement for overseas travel came into use after the Great War. However, this
History Scotland2 min read
A Long Tradition Of Scholarship
In the age of GPS and Wikipedia, it is easy to forget that, for our ancestors, geographical knowledge of their own country could by no means be taken for granted, a reminder of which can be found in Alastair Mitchell’s article (page 39). The geograph
History Scotland3 min read
Final Word
CLICK HERE TO VIEW GALLERY CLICK HERE to read the bonus question What does your role as Industrial Museums Scotland coordinator involve? It’s a very varied and interesting role which involves me connecting with many people across the museums sector

History Scotland

More Issues From History Scotland