Issue No. 20 NEWSLETTER of Perth & Kinross Council Archive Hon. Presidents: Bob Scott, Provost, Perth & Kinross Council: Sir William Macpherson of Cluny and Blairgowrie The Threipland Papers 600 years of historical records A collection of national importance PLUS SIR STUART THREIPLAND Perth in WWI : The Farquhar Diaries From The Threiplands of Fingask by The Perthshire Society of Natural Science Robert Chambers (Edinburgh 1880) Archive Sources on Women : Pont Surveys Chairman’s Notes : News at the Archives Perth & Kinross Council Archive, AK Bell Library, York Place, Perth PH2 8EP, Tel: 01738 477012 Email: [email protected] . Notes from the Chair Due to the hard work done by the senior staff in the Local History Section and the Archive, the Family History Day held on the 2nd of December 2006 was a resounding success. Lead Officers from the Education and Children’s services were in attendance, and worked with staff and volunteers from the Friends to ensure that the public were introduced to the many stalls on display, and to the variety of activities around the building. This event gets bigger and better every year and sees to be installing itself as a major event in the calendar. This leads me on to my enquiry to Patricia Ferguson MSP, Culture Minister in the Scottish Execu- tive, on aspects of the Draft Culture (Scotland) Bill, and how volunteers require appropriate support. This includes funding and guidance to enable them to be proficient in the work they do, and widen our perspective so that the knowledge we generate can be passed on to all age groups. We have been asked to make a submission to the bill through Maria Walker, Lead Officer for Perth and Kinross Council, at the beginning of 2007 Jim Ferguson News at the Archive Accessions and listings: A lot of work recently has been concentrating on sorting out all those tiny collections – some of only one item - accessions that we’ve accumulated over the years but not given them their own spotlight, so to speak. Our MS14 is the artificial collection - or fonds as we profes- sionals call collections! - where we put in all these tiny collections and list them as sub-fonds. Most of them have now been entered into our Archive management system – or ***??!!* , as we tend to call it – so you can look forward to seeing a new, extended list of sub-fonds that make up MS14 on the catalogue shelf in the searchroom. A lot of these offer tantalising glimpses of our history, some quite recent such as MS14/173 'Scheme of Work', M.P. Dryden's note book of primary school lesson plans, probably done for teaching in an English school in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It’s a lovely notebook and covers reading, written expression work, number skills, language training, handwork, nature lessons, conversational skills, stories, recitations, drawing, singing, physical training, general training and scripture. We’ve also added photocopies and a transcript of original documents held at the NAS; one is a Perthshire mili- tia list of 1817 (MS14/175) and the other lists the inhabitants of Strelitz who were volunteers be- tween 1763-1766 (MS17/176). Various thesis and manuscripts have been added including 'A very dangerous Place? Radicalism in Perth in the 1790s' a dissertation by Valerie Honeyman and an ms draft of Anthony Cooke’s Stanley - from Arkwright Village to Commuter Suburb: 1784-2002. Major accessions and accruals include the records of the recently closed school at St Fillans. These consist of log books, which were a school diary kept by the head teacher and which have survived since the school’s inception under the school board in 1873 to closure in 2006, and admission regis- ters, dating from 1873-2003. Logierait school has also deposited its log books and admission regis- ters, and we’re expecting more. Perth Choral Society has also deposited its more modern records as has Letham Community Council. Of older material, we now have the Moncrieffe Estate Time Book, which is a ledger listing date, and time taken for work done by various craftsmen eg slaters and carpenters on the Moncrieffe estate,1852-1860. As usual, a full list of recent accessions can be viewed on the website at www.pkc.gov.uk/archives under ‘Archive news’ Source Lists: Most of you know that many of the Friends volunteers are involved in projects aimed at making the Archive's collections more accessible – mostly by creating electronic source lists. These are databases that list material from different collections into one theme or subject. The source lists can be consulted in the Archive search room, but we hope that by the time you read this, the Perth Burgh Burial Register database will be available online. Keep checking that website! 2 Jan Merchant The Threipland Papers Many of you know that for the past two years the Archive has been arranging and listing the Threipland Papers, thanks to an award from the Heritage Lottery Fund for £50,000. The money meant we could employ an archivist fulltime to get the work done – we’d had the collection for nearly ten years but despite attempts to catalogue it, lack of staff time and other resources meant little got done. Not surprising when the collection came to us in over sixty large boxes and even- tually numbered over 31,000 items! But now the collection is arranged and listed and we can find out about the family and their ac- tivities, the estates that comprised Threipland lands here in Perthshire and in Caithness, the ten- ants, servants and their work. It’s possible that the Theiplands originated in Peebleshire, but after 1600 they appear in Perth where Patrick Threipland was a merchant, appearing frequently in the list of magistrates. He be- came Provost in 1665, and several times thereafter and as a determined loyalist to the Stuarts was awarded a knighthood in 1674 and a baronetcy in 1687. He prospered so well that in 1672, he could purchase the estate of Fingask in the Carse of Gowrie from the Bruce family – many of these documents have survived, although you need Latin to read many of them! Unfortunately, Patrick’s adherence to the Stuart cause led to his arrest and imprisonment in Stirling castle where he died in 1689 The family remained staunch Jacobites, with Patrick’s son and grandson both dying for the cause, and the family consequently lost their title and ownership of Fingask Castle. Only the courage and wiliness of Katherine Smythe, the second wife of Patrick’s grandson, saw off marauding sol- diers and kept the family actually living in at Fingask. Katherine’s only surviving son, Stuart, was physician to Bonnie Prince Charlie. After the ’45 he fled abroad, but returned to Scotland after the amnesty of 1747 Fingask Castle, early 19th century 3 Extract from Plan of Fingask belonging to Sir Stuart Threipland by James Stobie, 1784 (MS169/3/1/12(1)) and established himself in Edinburgh. By 1783, forfeited estates like Fingask were put up for auction, and Stuart took his opportunity to repurchase Fingask. It was his marriage to Janet Budge-Murray that saw lands in Caithness come into the family. The Threiplands had their title restored in 1826, but with the death of the childless fifth baronet, Patrick Murray Threipland, in 1882, the baronetcy ended. Patrick was succeeded by his cousin, Wil- liam Scott-Kerr of Chatto, who took the name of Murray Threipland, and whose descendents still live at Fingask. The duration of the family at Fingask, despite interruptions, has therefore lasted over 400 years – a feat that is reflected in the breadth of the collection. Such a vast collection covers many different areas, both geographically and thematically, so to make sense of it, it was imperative to establish a basic arrangement – charts were made and continually al- tered as we worked through the collection. The largest section, Estate Management, deals with the land and its tenants and comprises posters advertising roups and leases, the leases themselves, letters of application from prospective tenants, sketches and word-maps of the estates, wages books and in- formation about crops – what was grown and how. 4 Leases contained the tenant’s and landlord’s restrictions, obligations and rules, particularly about crop rotation which ensured that the land was not exhausted, especially where it sloped. Dunging was also important, and leases covered what was to be dunged and how often. Penalties for deviat- ing could be harsh – one case saw a fine of £5 – and court cases did ensue. Although the estate correspondence shows there were problem tenants, none were as bad as one Alexander McDougall, who was originally a farm servant to Katherine Smythe. On her death in 1762, he was left to supervise the home farm, but ended up pretending to occupy much of Fingask lands, based entirely on fictitious leases. He kept Stuart Threipland in the courts for years, using every quirk in the law available to him. The leases, like many of the documents, are particularly useful to family, social-and economic his- torians, providing details of the tenant, the land they farmed, rent paid and length of the tenancy. There’re also some ‘character references’ like the one below for two brothers, which is unusual in that their political views are commented on along with their general suitability as tenants Other records portray broader estate activities, like posters advertising roups of wood and orchard fruits and notebooks listing sales and buyers. For horticulturalists, there are records relating to the gardens at Fingask, including a diary noting plantings and other garden work.