Historiographical debate about religious change and secularisation in Scotland often fails to take a sufficiently long-term perspective and to subject the sources used to critical scrutiny. In this article, one possible metric of secularisation (churchgoing rates) is investigated for Scotland's third largest city (Aberdeen), by a statistical examination of thirteen church censuses between 1836 and 2016. Emphasis is placed on the varying methodologies of the censuses and the limitations to their comparability. Churchgoing in the city has declined continuously, relative to population, since the mid-nineteenth century. Six possible explanations for this are proposed. By 1984, Aberdeen had the lowest rate of church attendance of any part of Scotland. Today, only 4 per cent of Aberdonians are in the pews on an average Sunday, one-tenth the proportion in 1836.
The conventional histories of the Tay Bridge have focused understandably on the dramatic collapse of the first edifice in 1879 and the deaths then. Various aspects of what was an engineering project of international professional and public interest have been neglected. The construction of the two Tay Bridges (the original that collapsed, and its immediate replacement) took place over several years, leading to a major industrial site at Dundee. The ancient office of Coroner had fallen into desuetude and, in the absence of any substituting legal intervention, the deaths individually or collectively over the whole project on or near the industrial site were not investigated for consideration at any public inquiry, or as matters of general health and safety concern. Sudden and accidental deaths looked into by the police force were reported to the relevant Procurator Fiscal for the area. The result then was merely a confidential administrative disposal.
At a time of rising Cold War enmity in Europe, the British government planned a new Joint Services Guided Weapons Establishment in the southern Outer Hebrides and St Kilda. To mitigate local opposition in the Uists and Benbecula, the Air Ministry pledged the creation of jobs and new civil infrastructure for crofting communities struggling to maintain their security of tenure. This article examines both the high-level political manoeuvres in London and Edinburgh and crofters' responses to the government's scheme in the local context. The project's legal implications for land tenure are considered along with its deeper effect on local perceptions of the British state's developmental promise.
The art of printing came to Aberdeen in 1622 with the arrival of Edward Raban, a journeyman printer. Within months he was appointed Unversitatis Typrographus followed quickly by appointment as Urbis Typographus. He played a prominent role in both economic and cultural life of the city for the next twenty-five years. This article is based on research conducted as part of the four hundredth anniversary of Raban's arrival in Aberdeen. Previous scholars of bibliographic and print history have examined aspects of Raban's life and established a narrative that he first came to Scotland in 1620. Through interrogation of Old Parish Registers and other genealogical sources, this narrative can now be disproved, and the article demonstrates that Edward Raban was domiciled in Scotland as early as 1616. It also explores other aspects of Raban's familial connections, particularly his son & Eacute;douard Raban, printer in Orange. It also suggests further avenues for research around Raban's putative involvement with what is commonly called the Pilgrim Press in Leiden.
An examination of newspaper reports from 1840 to 1940 shows the widespread popularity of competitive turnip hoeing matches in northeast Scotland, notably in Aberdeenshire. Using the lens of a number of champion hoers, this article explores the emergence and development of such matches. Peaking in the late 1930s, they attracted hundreds of competitors and spectators. Their demise was linked in part to the dominance of a number of expert hoers but more to a long-term replacement of the turnip by silage as feed for the cattle that were such a central part of the region's agriculture. Retrieving the history of such events is not only of interest in its own right but gives us an insight into the distinctive rural culture of the area.
This is the first major study to examine in depth the recruitment, role and responsibilities of estate ground officers across the Gàidhealtachd. 2 Referencing a comprehensive range of primary source materials, this paper asserts a new role for the ground officer and hopes to advance a more sophisticated view of their reception. The role of the estate ground officer ( maor-gruinnd) in Scotland and in particular the Gàidhealtachd has generally escaped the attention of historiographers. They were liable to be overshadowed by their manager the factor, also known as a chamberlain, so there is currently a dearth of meaningful historiography. This is a pity given the popular and ever-growing interest in the Clearances. Generally, ground officers may receive at best a passing reference in academic papers on the subject and a fleeting mention if any, in the general index of any book on the Highland Clearances. The lack of in-depth research into ground officers may also in part be due to their social position in society, and hence the misplaced perception of them as having an insignificant role in the administrative structure of an estate. This paper seeks to challenge this historiographical narrative and offer a new and original contribution to this topic. As principally members of the crofter class, they have been marginalised and dismissed as ‘minor estate officials’ and ‘underlings’ which suggests that they are not considered worthy of serious scholarly attention or scrutiny. 3 Perhaps they have also been viewed one-dimensionally, as menial illiterate figures simply doing the bidding of their superiors, the factor and the estate owner. Ground officers could certainly be involved in the more routine aspects of estate administration, but that is not to say they were incapable of a range of more challenging and multifaceted tasks. While they were in some cases resented by the men and women who fell under their purview, they could also be valued for their work in the community. The explanation for the general unpopularity of ground officers especially during the Clearance era is self-explanatory. After all they were seen as authority figures and were tasked with the strict enforcement of estate regulations as well as the unenviable task of being directly and actively involved at times in local clearances and removal of the native population during the period of this paper. The complete absence of a paper on an estate ground officer in Scotland is surprising given the existing primary sources available to historiographers. 4 I have recently written the first monograph on a Scottish estate ground officer which I hope will be published in due course and start to redress the balance. Various case studies in this paper will shed light on the role of ground officers, their representation and situation within the power dynamics of Scottish estate administration. This new and original paper goes beyond existing scholarship on this neglected subject and hopes to pave the way to a new understanding of the ground officer and his historical significance.
According to Alexander Grant, Robert Stewart (the future Robert II) acquired Badenoch through the terce rights of his second wife, Euphemia Ross, countess of Moray, and the political and social situation in Badenoch has been discussed based on this interpretation. However, in his study on the Strathbogie earls of Atholl, Alasdair Ross argued that the lordships of Badenoch and Lochaber, which were included in the Randolph earldom of Moray, were detached from the earldom in the mid-1330s when Earl John brought the earl of Atholl over to the Bruce side. This interpretation has also garnered support from historians; however, these two interpretations are incompatible. Therefore, this study aims to resolve this discrepancy by reassessing the relevant evidence. In conclusion, this study argues that the lordship of Badenoch, together with that of Lochaber, was indeed detached from the earldom of Moray in the 1330s but was recovered by Randolph in the early 1340s and subsequently passed on to the Stewarts as Euphemia's terce land. Although this study focuses on elucidating the belonging of Badenoch in the mid-fourteenth century, this conclusion also contributes to the debate concerning the political and social changes in the central Highlands during the mid-fourteenth century, changes which have been argued to have been caused by the collapse of regional power and the rise of militarised Gaelic kindreds.
This is the first major study to examine in depth the recruitment, role and responsibilities of estate ground officers across the G & agrave;idhealtachd.2 Referencing a comprehensive range of primary source materials, this paper asserts a new role for the ground officer and hopes to advance a more sophisticated view of their reception. The role of the estate ground officer ( (maor-gruinnd (maor-gruinnd) in Scotland and in particular the G & agrave;idhealtachd has generally escaped the attention of historiographers. They were liable to be overshadowed by their manager the factor, also known as a chamberlain, so there is currently a dearth of meaningful historiography. This is a pity given the popular and ever-growing interest in the Clearances. Generally, ground officers may receive at best a passing reference in academic papers on the subject and a fleeting mention if any, in the general index of any book on the Highland Clearances. The lack of in-depth research into ground officers may also in part be due to their social position in society, and hence the misplaced perception of them as having an insignificant role in the administrative structure of an estate. This paper seeks to challenge this historiographical narrative and offer a new and original contribution to this topic. As principally members of the crofter class, they have been marginalised and dismissed as 'minor estate officials' and 'underlings' which suggests that they are not considered worthy of serious scholarly attention or scrutiny.3 Perhaps they have also been viewed one-dimensionally, as menial illiterate figures simply doing the bidding of their superiors, the factor and the estate owner. Ground officers could certainly be involved in the more routine aspects of estate administration, but that is not to say they were incapable of a range of more challenging and multifaceted tasks. While they were in some cases resented by the men and women who fell under their purview, they could also be valued for their work in the community. The explanation for the general unpopularity of ground officers especially during the Clearance era is self-explanatory. After all they were seen as authority figures and were tasked with the strict enforcement of estate regulations as well as the unenviable task of being directly and actively involved at times in local clearances and removal of the native population during the period of this paper. The complete absence of a paper on an estate ground officer in Scotland is surprising given the existing primary sources available to historiographers.4 I have recently written the first monograph on a Scottish estate ground officer which I hope will be published in due course and start to redress the balance. Various case studies in this paper will shed light on the role of ground officers, their representation and situation within the power dynamics of Scottish estate administration. This new and original paper goes beyond existing scholarship on this neglected subject and hopes to pave the way to a new understanding of the ground officer and his historical significance.
Between around June and December 1823, a committee existed in Aberdeen that raised funds to support the cause of Greek independence from Ottoman rule. The committee was formed two years into the Greek Revolution of 1821-32 as a local branch of the recently constituted London Greek Committee. A leading figure in the establishment of the Aberdeen Greek Committee was Thomas Gordon of Buthlaw and Cairness (1788-1841), a wealthy Aberdeenshire laird and military officer of international experience. Gordon was among the earliest foreigners to join the revolutionaries in person, and he wrote the first comprehensive history of the conflict in any language. This paper traces the background, origins, life, membership and afterlife of the Aberdeen Committee for the first time, with a particular focus on the involvement of Thomas Gordon. While the committee was short-lived and its material impact negligible, it provided a focal point for support of the Greek Revolution in North East Scotland, mobilising direct involvement or financial support from a circle of at least twenty residents of Aberdeen City and Shire of varying socioeconomic standing. It is thus the key case study for the history of philhellenism-that is, support for the cause of Greek independence-in the region.
This article explores the changing status of the common people in Badenoch in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Two main strands are considered: firstly, the use of protest and petitions in freeing people from oppressive feudal and clan hierarchies; secondly, the role of individual initiative in improving economic status - arguing that protest and economic progress were equal components in improving the lives of the people. The article further considers the mechanisms by which these improvements were effected - the agency and assertiveness of the people themselves, their broadening horizons, and the helping hand provided by landowners and factors.1
This article examines a carving of a compass rose, initials and other marks on a rock outcrop at a coastal site in West Shetland. During the late medieval and early modern periods Shetland lay at the crossroads of an extensive north Atlantic maritime trade network. From the mid sixteenth century until the Acts of Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in 1707 the islands relied upon German and Scottish seafarers sailing annually from the Hanseatic ports of Hamburg, Bremen and Danzig to supply manufactured goods, materials and money predominantly in exchange for dried and salted fish and agricultural produce. This marine navigation depended heavily upon magnetic compasses but the significance of these instruments extended beyond purely shipboard use. Examples of compasses carved in rock exist throughout coastal locations in Scandinavia associated with this trade network. Using historic geomagnetic declination data, a new field survey and comparative and contextual evidence, a late sixteenth to early seventeenth century date is proposed for a Shetland example which links it to this trade network during a period of socio-political and economic upheaval in the Shetland islands and the eventual redirection of this trade to mainland Scotland.
This article examines surfing in Caithness and Sutherland after 1970, primarily within the context of the two former counties’ tourism industries. The coasts of Caithness and Sutherland contain several world-class sites for surfing. The first permanent community of surfers appeared during the 1970s, and was linked to the Dounreay Experimental Reactor Establishment (DERE), a controversial nuclear research facility that, whilst employing many people, had issues with pollution and economic unsustainability. Dounreay ceased active operation in the late 1990s; and, from that period onwards, the economy has moved towards regeneration. This has included the tourist economy; which, in Caithness and Sutherland, lagged far behind other regions of the north. In this context, surfing was not seen by policymakers as an explicit means to develop tourism – surfers made little attempt to interact with the traditional hospitality economy – but has long been viewed as attractive in terms of public relations, and in seeking to build a new image for the now post-industrial region. From the 2010s onwards, and parallel to the development of the far more contentious and conspicuous North Coast 500 tourist route, surfing began to reflect broader trends in tourism development.
This article examines the reasons behind the formation of the little-known Shetland Female Emigration Society and its reception in the Australian colonies. Much has been written about emigration from Scotland and, even more extensively, about female emigration from the United Kingdom in the second half of the nineteenth century. The question of female emigration from Scotland at the time has, by contrast, attracted little attention from scholars so far, even though the country represents a particularly interesting case-study, offering as it did candidates for emigration that differed widely from one region to another in linguistic, religious and ethnic terms. Yet, the SFES, which was launched in 1850 to help in the emigration of young and single women to South Australia and Tasmania, presents the particularity of having offered a Presbyterian, Scandinavian, English-speaking set of emigrants whose moral, domestic and religious qualities made them stand out from their Celtic (and Roman Catholic) Highland and Irish counterparts. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, this paper looks at the conditions in which this philanthropic society was launched, at the intersection of Scottish, British and Australian needs. It also, and mostly, argues that the reception of such schemes must not only be analysed through the lens of gender, famine-relief and imperialist goals, but also through that of a cultural, religious and ethnic bias.
This essay examines from a historical perspective the long-standing reputation of Forres, Moray, for being a place of note for witches. Famous for being mentioned in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the site of his meeting with three witches is commemorated in a local landmark called Macbeth’s Hillock. A study of Shakespeare’s’ sources from ancient chronicles and an examination of early performances of the play suggest this meeting was not a historical event but the fruits of the Imagination of more than one playwright. Another local landmark called the Witches’ Stone is remembered as the final resting place of one of three witches burned for their involvement in the bewitching of King Duff in the late tenth century. The earliest chronicles make no mention of this. Duff was later killed at Forres by Duncan abetted by his scheming wife, on whom Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth is largely based. The last witch burned in Forres is said to be Dorothy Calder. This story, believed to be factual, is a fiction, the name of an innocent pauper plucked from the kirk session records to create a parable on the dangers of evildoing. Missing from the traditional accounts are the names of Isobel Elder and Isabel Simpson, who are the only women known to have been burned at Forres, during the 1662/3 Restoration witch hunts. It is very likely that the stone was placed to commemorate their last resting place rather than an event that may or may not have happened a thousand years ago. Alexander Brodie of Brodie examined Elder and Simpson and other witches. His, and other contemporary accounts suggest that, contrary to popular belief, Isobel Gowdie, the most famous of the Auldearn witches, was not burned in a period when reason and rational reluctance overcame religious zeal and superstition. The only time in history when Forres appears to be a hotbed of witches is the present day when the concept of witches and what it means to be a witch have been appropriated, sanitised and commercialised.
This paper presents a brief biographical account of the life and work of Hermann Gross - a German Expressionist artist - who was born in 1904 in Lahr, Baden-W & uuml;rttemberg. The nature and extent of his professional training with a succession of distinguished teachers are outlined. With the outbreak of WW2, he was conscripted in January 1941 and joined a Luftwaffe propaganda unit. Attention is drawn to a number of sketches drawn by Gross, which were discovered long after the end of the war, and which appear to show a series of subversive messages. In the latter stages of WW2, Gross was transferred to the Russian front and was involved in the subsequent and calamitous retreat of the German army. This latter experience proved deeply traumatic for Gross and from which he did not fully recover for two decades. Partly in an attempt to address his impaired mental health he emigrated to the USA with his wife. Although he had two exhibitions of his work at the Macbeth Gallery in New York, where his work was highly commended by a number of leading American art critics, he never truly settled and returned to Germany to live a quiet and undemanding life. Then in 1966 he was invited by Dr Karl K & ouml;nig, founder of the Camphill community in Scotland, to come to Aberdeen and to act as an artist-in-residence. For the next two decades, with his artistic drive and enthusiasm fully restored, Gross was actively engaged in a wide range of artistic work: none of which he chose to publicly exhibit beyond the Camphill community. He died in 1988 and is buried in Maryculter kirkyard, Aberdeenshire.
This article explores the links between the development of civic culture, philanthropic endeavours, and the proceeds of enslavement and colonialism in North East Scotland. Assessment of the financial records of establishments dedicated to improving health, poor relief and education in this region underpins this article. This article demonstrates that the North East's colonial elite were keen philanthropists in ways similar to their counterparts elsewhere in Britain. Colonial capital played a discernible - if at times minor - role in funding North East philanthropy. There were differing degrees of impact across each institution, both in the scale of the financial contribution and its geographical provenance. Moreover, the evidence detailed in this article suggests that the Caribbean and South Asia milieu in the North East took different approaches to philanthropy. The former contributed more regularly and often to existing institutions; the latter tended toward endowing new projects. Deriving its conclusions from under-examined evidence and a Caribbean-South Asia comparative framework, this article shows that research on philanthropic organisations can generate a clearer understanding of the legacies of enslavement and colonialism in Scotland.
This article examines the representation of Gypsy/Travellers in Scottish museums using a decolonial perspective. Focusing on a case study of Jamie Macpherson's fiddle and its re-interpretation at the Clan Macpherson Museum in 2021, this article explores the value of using decolonial ideas to frame and interpret Scottish Gypsy/Traveller experience. It argues that, both historically and in the present, Scottish Gypsy/Travellers have been subject to racism and discrimination that are the product of colonialism and its continuing legacies. This theoretical framework of coloniality informed a collaborative project to reinterpret Jamie Macpherson's fiddle at the Clan Macpherson Museum, where the authors worked with activists and members of the Gypsy/Traveller community. The focal point of this re-interpretation was a piece of creative writing by Maggie McPhee, a Scottish Traveller, whose 'Heartbreak Through Her Eyes' re-imagined the story of Jamie Macpherson - hanged at Banff in 1700 for being an 'Egiptian' (Gypsy) - from the perspective of his mother. Centering the experience of both women and Gypsy/Travellers, Maggie McPhee's story demonstrated different ways of knowing the past. Drawing on recent feminist work in South America on the epistemologies of the South, we argue that storytelling such as Maggie's can become an act of decolonial resistance - a form of 'poetic knowledge' that can be an important part of broader efforts to decolonise museums. The enduring coloniality of anti-Gypsy/Traveller racism is challenged by the powerful and beautiful words of Maggie McPhee, centring the Gypsy/Traveller voice in ways that change our understanding of the past and fight racism in the present.
This article presents a biography and multi-generational microhistory student and a pioneering practitioner of Western medicine in colonial West Africa. Nathaniel's father, Thomas King, rose from slavery to become a missionary and linguist in Sierra Leone and what would later become Nigeria. Nathaniel, born to survivors of the Middle Passage, graduated M.B., C.M. from Aberdeen in 1876, before returning to West Africa to become a prominent member of the educated elite in Victorian Lagos. The long-established historiography of Scottish 'sojourners' abroad has not yet explored the impact of colonial sojourners to Scotland, an itinerary travelled particularly by male students from within the empire, especially as Scotland's universities became imperial centres of medical training. This article draws particular attention to the significance of Britain's nineteenth-century campaign against the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the arrival of the first African-born students at Scottish universities, placing King's history within a broader pattern of Africans born to people liberated from slave ships who ventured to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and St Andrews in the middle decades of the nineteenth century for medical training.
