NEWSLETTER ISSUE 24 SUMMER 2008 A 1920s Mobile Library; Perthshire was the first county to adopt them CONTENTS : Notes from the Chair and Archive News Page 2 How our Libraries and Local Studies evolved 4 Perth’s Eighteenth Century Seaborne Trade 7 Pitlochry’s Forgotten Photographer 12 Prize Crossword 16 See you on the Summer Outing in July? For details see p.2 Notes from our Chair Our 2007-2008 session seemed to pass very quickly indeed. Does time fly when one's enjoying oneself? The past year has had several highlights. Thanks to an excellent programme we have been treated to some fascinating talks on a great variety of subjects within the unifying theme of local and Scottish history. As you will see from the programme for 2008-2009 enclosed with this Newsletter, we can look forward to some equally stimulating talks next year. The work of the volunteers has continued quietly, but usefully. We were most gratified to receive the accolade from the Society of Information Technology Management (SOCTIM) on the Perth Burial Registers database which is available on the Archive webpages. SOCTIM praised the website as being particularly innovative. Congratulations to Vera Purves and Marjory and John Howat, who have worked so hard on this project. The Friends' outside activities - manning a stall at the Scottish Records Association and assisting in the Library's Family Fun Day - were enjoy- able in themselves - but these activities can also raise the profile of the Friends and help us to recruit further members. By the way, copies of the Constitution with the new wording approved by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) can be consulted in the Archive search room, as can agendas and minutes of our AGMs and general meetings. As for the AGM held on 22 May, the Friends confirmed the appointment of Mr Donald Abbott as our third Honorary President. We are delighted that he has agreed to serve in this capacity and we look forward to his continued involvement with the Friends. The Committee's recommendation to raise subscription rates was not taken lightly, but the simple truth is that the FPKCA is living above its income. My thanks to the Friends for approving the increase If you have the opportunity, you may like to visit the Family History Event, and the FPKCA stall there, in the Glassite Hall, Dundee, on Saturday 13 September. We resume our meetings on Thursday 18 Septem- ber at 6.30pm with a talk from Dr Charles Waterston on the Sandemans of Springland. Meantime, may I wish you all a very pleasant summer? Margaret Borland Stroyan Have a great day out with the Friends on the 2008 Summer outing to DRUMMOND CASTLE GARDENS AND KEEP Monday 21 July 2008 meeting there at 10.30 am The morning will begin with a guided tour of the 15th century Keep, followed by a tour on a horti- cultural theme with the Head Gardener. The visit will end with a small picnic lunch in the castle grounds provided by the Friends. Space is limited to 20 persons, so the basis of allocation is first come, first served. Warning; the stairs in the Keep are very steep and uneven and do not have a handrail. Price: £10 per person, payable on booking. Contact the Archive (01738 477012) for a form. 2 Archive News Here at the Archive, we try to encourage future generations of archivists by offering work- placements to students who need the experience before they can enroll on one of the archive and records management diploma courses. Since January, we’ve been fortunate to have John Watson working with us for one day a week, and we’re trying to show him what we do, how and why we do it, from re-shelving materials to answering enquiries to arranging and listing collections. So, thanks to John’s hard work, newly available and fully arranged and listed is the small collec- tion, MS285 Tulloch Angling Club whose records contain informa- tion about the club and the competitions they took part in between 1889-1956. We also have an accession for Luncarty Angling Club, so I think John will go on to list this collection (although I’m not sure if he’s actually that interested in fishing – still, the experience will be good for him!). Other additions to the miscellaneous MS14 collection include 'Origins of the Public Library Movement with Special Reference to Perth' and 'Scottish Wills 17th century, District of Auchterarder Perthshire' which is a transcript of condensed testaments taken from Commissariot Court records. There's also a bound collection of copied documents, 'Kinclaven Bridge over the River Tay at Meikleour' which chart the bridge's construction by consulting engineering firm, Formans and McCall. Finally, we've added a transcription edited by Mary Lutyens of 'Effie Ruskin's Letters from Venice 1849-1852' which form part of the Bowerswell Papers in the Pierpont Library, New York. As always, we’re grateful for the constant deposits to the Archive; recent ones have included school board minutes, letter book and parochial board minutes for Kettins parish, 1852-1930. And one deposit that I’m particularly excited about is a collection of hard copy and digital images of Auchterarder's main and side streets as well as aerial shots of the town and surrounding area plus sections of merged photographs showing the High Street. These are the images taken be- tween 2004-2007 for the Awards for All Lottery funded project, Snapshot Auchterarder. Another accession is the letters of Samuel Black Watson, 1913-1918, written during Black’s time in the Army and when he was on sick leave. From the few I’ve glanced at, they provide an insight into the minutae of daily concerns which doesn’t really get recorded anymore in this age of instant communication. I might let John have a go at listing these, but I’m tempted to just keep them to do myself! Jan Merchant 3 Sara Ann Kelly, Local Studies Librarian, tells us How Perthshire’s Libraries and Local Studies Evolved In this article I will try to outline the progression of the library service in Perth & Kin- ross from the very early establishment of libraries to the current situation of the Local Studies Department within the service. Libraries have been a feature of the Perthshire cultural landscape from as early as 1664 at Innerpeffray and in the town of Perth from at least 1784. We can tell from re- search carried out on the Statistical Accounts that libraries were much more widespread than today (although we don’t know how small a collection was considered worthy of the name). We are lucky to still have a few of the origi- nal books from the Perth Literary & Antiquarian Society, the first Perth Library, in our rare books section. In the nineteenth century most parishes had their own collection of books, and libraries began to be set up by employers as well as by venerable institutions such as the Mechanics Institute. But it wasn’t until the bequest of Archibald Sandeman in the 1890’s that Perth took advantage of the 1853 Public Libraries Act to build the Sandeman Library, in which the stocks of many existing libraries were brought together, as well as books obtained through a library’s right to levy a penny rate. The success of the Sandeman may have encouraged the Carnegie Trust to support an experi- mental County Library Service, which soon become the responsibility of the Education Au- thority. In their hands the service developed rapidly, so that by 1954 it was looking after no less than 213 branches and centres, although many of these were very small village units. Today, they have nearly all been replaced by visits from a mobile library - a new idea that the Perthshire County Library Service pioneered as early as 1920 (the magnificent vehicle on our front cover was an example from this period). This idea for giving a better service to outlying communities was taken up very quickly by other counties across the country and has evolved continuously since those early days. In the early part of the twentieth century, towns such as Blairgowrie, Crieff and Kinross had already founded their own autonomous libraries, but by 1971 they had all opted to become part of the County service, to which the Sandeman Library was also amalgamated just before Local Government reorganisation in 1974. 4 Top hats, flat caps; a huge crowd at the foundation ceremony of the Sandeman Library in 1896 Not long after the Sandeman opened, it began to receive donations and bequests of local signifi- cance, which considerably improved its existing collections and which much later would be- come the basis of the local studies stock. Most notable of these collections was the the extraor- dinary private library of the Perth historian and local author Robert Scott Fittis in 1906. Local Studies would be poor indeed if his collection had not come to the Sandeman, as we constantly refer to his own books and pamphlets on local history as well as those he collected. The next substantial donation of books did not happen until 1933 when the City of Dunkeld de- cided that the Mackintosh Library (which had been bequeathed to them over a hundred years before) would be safer in the confines of the relatively new Perth library. Consisting of over a thousand volumes ranging in date from the 1500’s to the 1830’s, this collection provides an in- sight both into the minds of a jacobite antiquarian of the late eighteenth century and the avail- able reading matter for public library readers in the early nineteenth century.