Inventory
Dep.279
Hiram Sturdy
National Library of Scotland Manuscripts Division George IV Bridge Edinburgh EH1 1EW Tel: 0131-466 2812 Fax: 0131-466 2811 E-mail: [email protected]
© Trustees of the National Library of Scotland Hiram Law Sturdy, 1889-1964, was born into a family of Miners at Newarthill, a village on the main road between Newhouse and Motherwell. He was first of all apprenticed as a painter and decorator, but really wanted to be down the mines. Eventually he had his way, and worked to begin with at Newarthill, and later in the South Wales coalfield.
He served throughout the First World War in the Royal Artillery, and then went back to the mines, this time to the Kent coalfield, in 1919. Shortly thereafter he returned to Newarthill and to his first trade as a painter.
His leisure time was spent illustrating notebooks. They show Newarthill as it was in his boyhood, though some material is as late as the Second World War, and are an exceptionally rich source of information not only on the topography of the village, but on the entire social fabric of the place.
NOTEBOOKS
1. ‘Newarthull (1)’.
2. ‘Newarthull (2)’.
3. ‘Newarthull (3)’.
4. ‘Newarthull (4)’.
5. Newarthull (5)’.
6. ‘Awa Ta-Ta Newarthill (6)’.
7. ‘War Newarthull (7)’.
8. ‘Aftermath (8)’.
9. ‘Vera Road Site, Blackwood Housing Scheme nr Lwsmahgow (9)’.
10. ‘Book 1. Games fur Weans’.
11. ‘The Battle o The Capital (Newarthull) - The Home Guard (1)’.
12. ‘The Home Guard (2)’.
13. ‘Book 2. Play time’.
14. ‘School and Holidays No.4A’.
15. ‘Fit o the Toon No.5A’. 16. ‘Book 6A. Yett. Lintie. Loanhead’.
17. ‘Book 7. Station Road & Gless Row’.
18. ‘Book 8A. The Top pit. The auld line’.
19. ‘Book 9. The Toll Road’.
20. ‘Book 10. The Hunting field. Old Pot shafts Fit o the Toon’.
21. ‘10A’ Omoa Poorhouse, Nae Waggons.
22. ‘Book 11. Passers by’.
23. ‘11A’ Strikes.
24. ‘12. South Africa War’.
25. ‘Book 13. Shanks Farm’.
26. ‘14 Pentin’.
27. ‘15 Pentin’.
28. ‘16’ Work’.
29. ‘17. The Dutch Girls, On Tramp, the Pits’.
30. ‘18. Pits’.
31. ‘19. Pits. A Hand Gas’.
32. ‘20. Pits. Lighting the Gas, The Walk to 40’.
33. ‘21. Pits. The Walk to 40, Home’.
34. ‘22. Washing day, Swats, Conveyors’.
35. ‘23. Pits, Blackie’.
36. ‘24. Fiddling’.
37. ‘40. Chislet’.
38. ‘41. Painting’. 39. ‘42. Painting’.
40. ‘44. Demolition & Rescue Squad, LDV’.
41. ‘45. The Home Guard’.
42. ‘46’. The Raid.
43. ‘47. Home Guard’.
44. ‘48. Home Guard’.
45. ‘49. The Road Back. Forward’.
46. ‘Characters’.
47. ‘Fit o the Toon, late 1890s-early 1900s, Newarthill’.
48. ‘Newarthull. From Wull’s Pub to Tam’s tree’.
49. ‘The Minister, the Morning meetings, First violin lesson’.
50. ‘‘o’ The Toon’.
51. Sectional map.