Message from the Chairman Message from the Manager
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TAIGH-TASGAIDH NA GAIDHEALTACHD AN IAR NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2017 Message from Message from the Chairman the Manager Communication is important Last year we had the highest in any organisation and we number of visitors to the Museum are indeed fortunate to have since 1981 and we have already this excellent Newsletter. beaten last year’s figure of 48,333! We are very grateful to all We have had 53,194 visitors so far contributors, especially and still have seven weeks to go Vanessa Martin, our Editor until the year end. and Sharon Donald our Our shop sales have been the best on record, due to Production Editor. increased visitor numbers, and a few new successful lines We have had another year of steady growth and which have sold well. Our Outlander cards & gifts are proving progress, and this is detailed on the following pages. very popular. We also have custom-made fridge magnets, Most recently, the fund-raising dinner and auction notebooks and bookmarks with the Museum, the Commando achieved around £11,000, and we are again grateful Memorial and the Secret Portrait on them. So, if you are in to Stewart Leitch of the Moorings Hotel, as well as the Fort William, pop into the shop and see what we have to offer. many donors. Colleen, her staff and our enthusiastic We organised a second Charity Auction Gala dinner which army of volunteers have certainly earned our thanks was again held at the Moorings Hotel. Imagine how delighted with their dedication and hard work throughout the I was when we raised £11,000 at the dinner. You will read year. It is quite humbling to realise the regard in more about this in another article in this newsletter. which our Museum is held and the ready goodwill we On another positive note, we have been accepted into the enjoy. VAT 33A Refund scheme which was updated in last year’s We have moved forward with plans to extend the budget. This allows museums with free admission to recover Museum and funding applications will be made during VAT relating to running costs. What the Government has 2018, fundamentally to the Heritage Lottery Fund and done is to widen the criteria so the refund can apply to all Scottish Land Fund. An essential requirement will be museums that provide at least 30 hours free public to change our governance structure to a company, the admission a week. We submitted our application which was West Highland Museum Trust. We now have supported by our MP Ian Blackford to the Department of confirmation that charitable status will be granted. Culture, Media and Sport and we have final approval from HM Early in the new year we will invite those 16 years and Treasury. We can now reclaim any VAT incurred in running over, registered to vote in Lochaber, to become the Museum and looking after the collection. We can also ordinary members of the company. Those living claim back any VAT incurred for 4 years from the date we elsewhere may be associate members; and those were approved into the scheme. from 12 to 15 years old can be junior members. In October we had a volunteers’ day trip to the National Operational transition to the new organisation will take Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh to see the Bonnie Prince place during 2018. Charlie and the Jacobites temporary exhibition. One of their Again I take the opportunity to remind you of our volunteers gave us a guided tour of the Scottish Galleries well-established bookshop which has a voucher before we went in to see the new exhibition. It was an scheme that should be of interest for Christmas gifts. interesting and enjoyable day out, which the volunteers really Please consider this and also tell your friends! enjoyed. One of our volunteers has written an article about With best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. the visit for the newsletter. On a final note, we rely on volunteers to help run the Museum. If you are interested in finding out more about our volunteering opportunities, please do contact us. Visit to the Bonnie Prince Charlie Sir Robert Strange & the Jacobites Exhibition at the One of the principle reasons for National Museum of Scotland the failure of the ill-fated Jacobite Rising of 1745 was lack of finance. From the very outset, money problems dogged Prince Charles Edward Stewart and his army. Expected gold from France failed to arrive. The army had to fall back on its own resources. By March 1746 the Jacobite troops had marched north to Culloden House. Money was in Robert Strange (1750) very short supply. The army had almost no food and was stretched widely over the countryside looking for anything to eat. Many men had deserted and returned to their homes. Prince Charles and his advisers hit on an unorthodox method of raising cash. They called on engraver Robert Strange for help. A party of twelve from the West Highland Museum travelled to They would print their own money. Edinburgh on Sunday 22nd October 2017 to visit the Bonnie Prince Robert Strange was from Orkney. He had studied engraving Charlie and the Jacobites Exhibition. Driven skillfully to the door by in Edinburgh, Rouen and Paris. He owed his presence in the Ricky Salter of Shiel Buses, we arrived in good time to meet our Jacobite army to his love for Isabella Lumisden, whose brother volunteer guide, James, who was to show us the Museum before was Secretary to Prince Charles. we visited the Exhibition. He proved to have a profound knowledge Although he was called upon on a Sunday, Strange persuaded of the Museum, but concentrated on the Kingdom of Scots Gallery. a printer in Inverness to build a press and a coppersmith to There were hundreds of exhibits, but James wisely selected a few prepare a plate. The plate was items of particular interest. Among them were a piece of Lewisian not of the best quality and so he Gneiss Rock, 2,900 million years old; the strange Ballachulish decided to etch rather than Goddess; the beautiful Fettercairn Jewel, acquired in March 2017; engrave. two huge double-handed swords used by the Scots to attack the There were eight designs – enemy horses at the Battle of each two and a half inches by Bannockburn and a vast trunk one and three quarter inches. that once held all the money The values recorded were one donated by prospective penny, two pence, three pence investors in the ill-fated Darien and sixpence. Scheme in Panama. The Robert Strange Plate Four were blank, but it was After lunch we were free to proposed to print notes up to the explore the Jacobite Exhibition. value of two hundred pounds. The basis of the design is a This was magnificently monogrammed C.P. on a cartouche with a coronet and Prince of organised. Although the story is familiar to us in the West Highland Wales feathers over a trophy of arms and banners. Museum there was much to learn. Beginning with the downfall of The print run was due to begin on April 13 but Cumberland’s James VII and II, there was a comprehensive recording of events Army approached and three days later were triumphant at leading up to the 1745 Rising Drumossie Moor. The defeated Jacobite army scattered. and the Battle of Culloden in The plate disappeared and was later found abandoned at Loch the following year. Portraits, Laggan. It was given to Ewen MacPherson of Cluny where it weaponry, apparel - with remained in the family for many years. In 1928 it was sold to the appropriate voice-overs - told fledgling West Highland Museum where it is now on display as the story of the battle and its part of the Jacobite Exhibition in Room 6. aftermath. Compelling stuff! Betty Bruce The loyalty of the Jacobites was remarkable - the display of wine glasses used to toast the Charming and informative King Over the Water is very fine West Highlands Museum assembled a high-quality - but the West Highland collection, the kind that even a larger capital museum Museum can still boast an could be proud of. Ran by enthusiasts it is very informative unrivalled treasure - the anamorphic portrait of the and a pleasant place to be. Not to be missed! Bonnie Prince! London, England, August 2017 Jean MacLeod 2 “The Expert Swordsman” – Re-discovered! “I went as a gunner to Fort William…in He retired aged about 48 years old and 1726 I fought a clean young man at became a Chelsea pensioner in London, Edinburgh. I gave him seven wounds and only to join up again at the time of the broke both his arms. This I did at the 1715 rising. He was said to have killed 21 request of several gentlemen. But now men in duels, was a prize fighter in a being 63 years of age, resolves to fight no London Bear garden and finally retired by more, but to repent for my former choice back to Fort William, where he wrote wickedness………….” So, wrote one Donald “the Expert Swordsman’s companion” and McBane in his book “The Expert died about 1728, the year of its Swordsman’s Companion” probably written publication. in the Fort of Fort William in the 1720’s. He must have been buried in the Much is known about McBane through Craigs. Many, including myself, have his autobiographical reflections in which he wandered about the graveyard in the hope describes his military and his malicious but of finding his stone but to no avail - until Donald McBane colourful career in those 63 turbulent recently! Mary MacKellar, writing in her Fort years.