Issue 42, Spring 2017
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Issue Number 42 Spring 2017 The Fair City Calisthenic Troupe, 1900-1910. James Kelly Image courtesy of Local & Family History, A K Bell Library, Perth CONTENTS Page Chairman’s Notes 2 News from the Archive 3 Our Assistant Achivist 4 Watch this Space: The East Perthshire Guide 5 A Jacobite Poem 6 Stan Keay 7 A Young Soldier’s Homecoming 8 Early Photographers of Perth 12 The Poor in Perthshire 18 The Angus Children 21 Wage Comparisons of Yesteryear 23 Friends’ Talks 2016-2017 session 24 Notes from our Chairman Firstly I would like to thank everyone for their kind messages and good wishes in regard to my accident. My physiotherapists have told me they cannot predict how long it will take to maximise the functionality in my right hand nor how much I can expect to recover. Turning to our Committee, it is with great sadness that I have to report that our Secretary of many years, Tommy Smyth, has stepped down due to health problems. Jim Ferguson, our Treasurer, is also resigning at the AGM having wished to go last year but very kindly agreeing to carry on until this May. So, we have some important vacancies to fill and if any members are willing to be nominated to fill these posts, please let us know so that we can ensure due process is followed at the AGM. On a happier note and as many of you will know, we have a new Assistant Archivist, Sarah Wilcock, who took up her post on 26th September 2016. She and our new Archivist, Ishbel MacKinnon, have settled in extremely well and attend our Committee meetings as often as they can. Thus the excellent productive relationship the Friends have had with the Archive staff is continuing as before. In terms of what the Friends have been doing to assist the Archive, we recently contributed £200 to purchase the Bill Anderson Album from Perth Railway Boxing Club. This was offered to the Archive by a bookseller but without our help it might not have been possible to acquire it. Our Archivist contacted the Perth Railway Boxing Club to let them know and they spontaneously donated several boxes of their records to the Archive. These contain photographs, pamphlets and press cuttings which will contribute to the history of boxing in Perth. Given that occurrence, your Committee discussed the matter of purchases for the Archive collections and concluded that, to try to ensure important items were not “missed”, we should fund an amount of £500 on a rolling basis. The use of this fund would be at the discretion of the Archivist and would be topped up from time to time depending on the usage of the fund. The Friends’ Committee also agreed to help fund a work placement during 2017 to facilitate cataloguing of the Perth Theatre Archive; the total required was £3,000 and the Committee agreed to donate £500. Also in this edition I am very pleased to let everyone know that Culture Perth and Kinross, the new charitable trust running our libraries, museums and Archive, have agreed to continue the previous agreement for room hire. Thus we will not have to pay for rooms for committee meetings or talks. They have also agreed that the Archive staff will assist us with planning and delivering our talks each year at no cost to the Friends. This is excellent news and will allow us to continue to run our talks at an affordable price to non-members. Alan Grant 2 News from the Archive It will come as no surprise to hear that it has been a busy six months in the Archive. We would like to say a special thank you to our volunteers who have been tremendously patient with us during the transition period for the Assistant Archivist. Plans for the new collection store are on-going. It has recently been announced that the location for the new Resource Centre will be a site on Auld Bond Road at Inveralmond. We will keep the Friends’ Committee informed of any development updates. For now, it is business as usual in the Archive. We have had some fantastic talks over the winter season with Nicola Cowmeadow’s and Syd House’s sold-out talk on Carolina, Lady Nairne, being a particular highlight. The process of finalising the speakers for the 2017/2018 talk season is underway and we will update you with the completed programme in due course. Just to remind you that subscription renewal is approaching and we very much hope that you choose to continue your membership with the Friends. The Charterhouse Project was launched on 21st February. The BBC and ITV were in the AK Bell Library filming interviews with key members of the project and this included a look at some of the tacks, letters and charters held in the Archive. This is a very exciting project based around the Charterhouse where King James I was buried, possibly near the site of the King James VI Hospital. The Charterhouse Project is intended to highlight the medieval history of Perth, using the latest advancements in digital technology to aid historical and archaeological research into the medieval Charterhouse and its royal tombs. Ishbel MacKinnon 3 Our Assistant Achivist Hello everyone, my name is Sarah Wilcock and I was recently appointed Assistant Archivist here at Perth & Kinross Council Archive. It has been a whirlwind first six months with lots to learn and a fantastic archive collection to explore but I feel I’ve got my feet under me now and it’s full steam ahead. I’m fairly new to the archive profession, beginning in 2012 as a Cultural Assistant in the William Patrick Library in East Dunbartonshire, where I was first introduced to and fell in love with archives. While working in the library, I became heavily involved in promoting our collections, particularly those of the Archive and it is a passion that I have brought with me to Perth & Kinross. Through my hands-on work with the archive collections in East Dunbartonshire, I came to realise that I wished to pursue a career in this field. I returned to university in September 2015 and graduated in November 2016 with an MSc in Information Management and Preservation from the University of Glasgow. I am thrilled to be here at the Perth & Kinross Council Archive and have already met many wonderful and welcoming people with the same passion and drive for making archives accessible to all. I look forward to meeting and working with many more of the Friends in the future. Sarah Wilcock 4 Watch this Space A Guide to the History and Culture of East Perthshire through the Archive is coming soon! This is the third in a series of illustrated booklets compiled by Friends’ volunteers, Margaret Smith and Jackie Hay. The first two cover Highland Perthshire and Kinross-shire. The latest guide is an introduction to the wide variety of records held by PKCA relating to the area covered by the former Eastern District Council, comprising the parishes of Alyth, Bendochy, Blairgowrie, Caputh, Cargill, Clunie, Collace, Coupar Angus, Kettins, Kinloch, Kirkmichael, Lethendy, Meigle, Rattray and St Martins. The Guide includes details of the official records of the justices of the peace, constabulary and local authority as well as the community collections, which have been arranged into six themes. We hope the Guide will encourage visitors to the Archive to see what they can discover about their family and local history. The Friends wish to express their gratitude to Dr David Robertson for his generous financial support of this project. Jackie Hay 5 Jacobite Poem In August 2016, the Archive purchased an interesting Jacobite poem called ‘After the Defeat at Culloden’ with financial support from the National Fund for Acquisitions. The poem has strong local connections and is a valuable addition to our existing Jacobite collections. During the autumn it was displayed in Perth Museum & Art Gallery’s ‘Art of War’ exhibition, alongside other items from our own and national collections. The Friends kindly paid for cleaning, conservation and mounting, prior to the exhibition. This generous support enabled many hundreds of visitors to see the poem and learn more about Perth & Kinross Council Archive. A very brief description follows and if anyone is curious to find out more you would be most welcome to look at it in the Archive. ………. ‘After the Defeat at Culloden’ is a poem in three parts. Folio 1 consists of thirty- nine lines written as a fictionalised conversation between Lady Weem and the Duke of Perth, asking for a description of the Battle of Culloden. Folio 2 comprises seven lines written as a fictionalised reply from the Duke of Perth to Lady Weem, assuring her that "The prince is safe and I no terrors Feell". Folio 3 is thirty-two lines written as a fictionalised conversation between Major Lockhart and The Duke of Cumberland. The final ten lines are written from Charles Edward Stuart's perspective, following the brutal defeat of the Jacobite forces at Culloden in 1745, ‘where shall I go or whether shall I turn – But still for my disstressed Friends Ill murn’. The poem is addressed to ‘Mr Mallicken at Deanstoun Mill’ and reads as a contemporary account of the Battle but our initial research on the author suggests that it may have been written in the later 18th century. A pencil annotation at the foot of Folio 4 suggests a date of c1746 but this is written in a later hand and so remains open to interpretation; we will continue to research this intriguing poem and its characters to establish more about its provenance.