Volunteering at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum brings many opportunities to handle and view important and interesting artefacts and collections
A recent bequest of glass negatives and photographs taken by a local man named Thomas. W. J. Leishman in the late 19th – early 20th Century is a prime example
This week’s image is a photograph included in a series of views of Edinburgh
Using my personal knowledge of Edinburgh it was fairly easy to reach the conclusion that it was taken in the Old Town
By utilising Google Maps I was able to determine the names of all the “Closes” off the Royal Mile and having also used Google Search to check for images of said “Closes” I came upon Bakehouse Close
Further investigation, using various Websites, provided more information about the history of Bakehouse Close which can still be visited today
“Bakehouse Close is one of the best-known closes leading off the ancient fishbone spine of the old Canongate burgh. The close can be found to the rear of Huntley House and takes its name from the Incorporation of Bakers of the Canongate who owned property on the west side of the close. Interestingly in 1851, 230 people lived here.”
The story of the resurrection of Christ is often told through the incident mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, where two pilgrims, on the way to Emmaus on the evening after the tomb of Jesus is found empty, are discussing the matter. They were met by Christ in the guise of a stranger who rebuked them for their unbelief. The pilgrims invited the stranger to eat with them when they reached Emmaus. When he broke the bread, “their eyes were opened” and they immediately recognised him as Jesus, before he vanished. The pilgrims hastened back to Jerusalem to spread the news of the resurrection.
This story has been popular with artists throughout the ages. Here, it is depicted in a 1928 studio panel by the stained glass artist Mary Isobel Wood (d. 1969) in the Stirling Smith collections.
One of the most famous paintings of the supper at Emmaus is that by Rembrandt in the Louvre in Paris. The Stirling Smith has a copy of this too, made by Thomas Stuart Smith, who bequeathed his paintings and money to establish the gallery in Stirling in 1869. Many artists perfected their skills by copying the old masters, and there are several examples of this practice in the Smith collections.
A little insight into the history of Croftamie Primary School is offered through the gift of the family of the late Ailsa Stirling (1927 – 2016), who was head teacher of the school, 1967 – 1992. She was very well known in the field of education, speaking of her experience as a teacher in a rural area at conferences in several Scandinavian countries and elsewhere.
Shown here are some of the teaching aids used by Ailsa during her time as a teacher – the belt or ‘Lochgelly’ strap used to control unruly pupils, until banned by the European Court of Human Rights in 1982, the school bell, which was a simple hand bell, cracked through use and repaired with solder, and a poster from the 1930s, one of a complete set of 84, showing scenes from daily life from the local to the international. With an interest in the history of teaching, she also had a box of Cuisenaire rods, developed by the educational specialist Georges Cuisenaire and used for teaching mathematics in the 1950s as well as a good selection of hobby and crafting books.
When Croftamie Primary School closed and the remaining pupils were transferred to Drymen, Ailsa Stirling wrote a complete history of the school, 1907 – 1997, which is part of the record
NB: Photo by Forth Valley College student volunteer Alan Gardiner
This is one of two paintings in the Stirling Smith collections by the eminent film maker Norman McLaren (1914 – 1987). McLaren was born in the house which faces the Smith and as a film maker, was internationally known through his work for the National Film Board of Canada and other agencies.
The cactus painting is one of 15 paintings and objects which caught the eye of Stirling Makar Clive Wright. Working with composers Tom David Wilson of the Royal Conservatoire, and Kostas Rekleitis, as well as the Smith’s poet in residence John Coutts, Clive Wright has written a Song Cycle for the Smith’s collections. It was be performed at the Smith on Wednesday 5 April 2017. Norman McLaren would have been delighted to hear the composition inspired by his painting, as he always believed in the power of one art form to inspire another.
Other objects celebrated in song are Thomas Stuart Smith’s Pipe of Freedom, the whale bones cast up on the Carse of Stirling by the tsunami 8000 years ago, a calthrop from the Battle of Bannockburn, the World’s Oldest Football and the wonderful carved oak chest from Cowane’s Hospital.
NB: Photo by Forth Valley College student volunteer Alan Gardiner
Yesterday was a monumental day for the Stirling Smith, when the new bronze portrait of King Robert the Bruce is unveiled by his descendant Lord Bruce. The portrait combines the research of Andrew Nelson, Professor of Anthropology of Western University, Ontario, with the work of forensic sculptor Christian Corbet, Sculptor in Residence at the Royal Canadian Navy. Together they have concluded that King Robert was never a victim of leprosy, laying to rest a pernicious 700-year old rumour. The evidence came from the close study of a cast of Bruce’s skull.
It was from the same cast that the sculptor Pilkington Jackson created his portrait of Bruce for the statue at Bannockburn, in 1960-1964. It is a little-known fact that the Bannockburn statue was made possible through funding from Canadian lawyer and philanthropist Eric L. Harvie. The bargain struck was that an identical statue of Bruce was provided for the grounds of the Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, Canada.
Canadian philanthropy is in the forefront again in celebrating the memory of King Robert, as the bronze is the gift of the sculptor Christian Corbet to Scotland and to Stirling, where it will star in the collections of the Stirling Smith. Corbet has helped change the course of Scottish history with this remarkable work.
Today we look back 30 years, to the time when nurses could be immediately identified by their uniform and badges. This photograph is one of a small collection gifted to the Stirling Smith, together with nursing badges. Nurse Sloan wears the green cap band of the State Enrolled Nurse and the purple and green Stirling Wolf badge of Stirling Royal Infirmary when she qualified in 1985.
Jean Sloan joined the forces as a Royal Alexandra Nursing Student. As she did not complete her training, she later had to start from the beginning at Callander Park’s Forth Valley College. She worked in the Operating Theatre after qualifying, so rarely had the pleasure of wearing her badges at work, all of which are as new.
Nursing has changed radically in the past few decades. In the army, nurses had to stand ‘at ease’ until the consultant had done his rounds. By contrast, life in one of SRI’s gynaecology wards was so informal, that a monkey was brought in from the Safari Park in 1989 to cheer up the patients.
Nursing has always been a profession demanding strength and dedication. Nurse Sloan contributed a professional article to the Nursing Standard and was on duty when the Dunblane Tragedy struck 21 years ago.
11th September is the 716th anniversary of William Wallace’s famous victory of the Battle of Stirling Bridge and to mark it is a painting of Old Stirling Bridge, 1915 by James Bisset Crockart (1885 – 1974). This purchase was made possible with grants from the Stirling Common Good Fund and the National Fund for Acquisitions. Remarkably it was secured for the Smith in Canada by Dr Robin Campbell, was brought back to Stirling.
Crockart was a Stirling-born artist who emigrated to Canada in 1911. He exhibited a painting of Old Stirling Bridge in the Smith in 1910, but this picture was painted in Canada, where he obtained employment with a firm of architects. He also worked producing posters for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, but evidently, did not forget his native town.
The salmon fishers with their nets were a common sight on the River Forth until the 1960s and they are depicted on the north bank of the river, on the left of the picture. The tall tenement building on the north side of the bridge was demolished in 1963.
Six links of an old iron chain survive in the Stirling Smith Collections – all that is left of the chain which bound those with a mental illness at the healing pool of St.Fillan near Killin.
The Irish monk St. Fillan came to Scotland in 717AD, and gave his name to Killin, where he settled, and where the healing pool was near to the Celtic Christian church, which he built. As late as 1792, the practice of dipping ‘lunatics’ in the freezing cold holy pool and chaining them up overnight as a ‘cure’ is recorded.
The small fragment of chain caught the imagination of student Robert Weston at the University of Western Australia, and working with Professor Susan Broomhall, he designed a greetings card for the Smith, with the remarkable story of the Chain. We should take some pride in the fact that people on the other side of the world can be inspired by a single Stirling story. There are hundreds of them to be discovered in the Smith – come and see for yourself!
It would take a book to assess and appreciate the effect of Hay’s Music Store on the cultural life of Stirling over the generations. Before its closure in 1996, the Store was in Friar Street, but previous locations were in Barnton Street and Murray Place.
The Hay family served and supported every aspect of musical life in Stirling, from the provision of pianos ‘to harmonise with any style of furniture’, to serving the needs of choral groups and orchestras. They coped with the revolutions in musical development, from the first recordings and wireless broadcasts onwards, sustaining the business through two World Wars. They were never just a retail outlet, but personally involved in the world of music, as today’s subject shows. The shellac record is one of three, gifted to the Stirling Smith collections by Sheena Malcolm, whose mother purchased them at Hay’s in the 1940’s to help her practise her Highland dance at home. Sheena attended the dance classes of Peg McDonald and May Beattie. Recorded on the Parlophone label, the music is played by Jenny and Jacca Hay, on two pianos, “in strict dance tempo”.
Sheena has fond memories of the big double–fronted store in Murray Place where there was great pleasure to be had in hearing the grand pianos, and where on occasion, stars like Kenneth McKellar would appear to sign their records.
This rare copy of the suffragette newspaper, 13 June 1913, is a recent gift to the Stirling Smith collections by librarian and Bridge of Allan historian, Malcolm Allan. It describes the tragic circumstances of the death of Emily Wilding Davison, who died under the hooves of the King’s horse at the Epsom Races, a hundred years ago. New research on surviving film of the event shows that Emily was trying to pin a purple, green and white suffrage scarf on the King’s horse. These scarves were screen printed by students in the Glasgow School of Art, and Emily’s scarf is now in the House of Commons.
The newspaper reveals that Emily Davison was jailed eight times before her death, and force fed 49 times. It was the Scottish suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop who invented the tactic of the hunger strike, as she wanted to fight for political freedom like her ancestor William Wallace. The government response was to force-feed the women.
Suffragettes responded by attacking property, to get the attention of the insurance companies when the government would not listen. In Stirlingshire, the Wallace Sword case was broken in the National Wallace monument, Ballikinrain Castle was destroyed by fire, Airthrey Spa Bowling Green was damaged and Prime Minister Asquith was attacked with a dog whip at Bannockburn.