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December 8, 2024
Outstanding Library Team of the Year – Times Higher Education Awards 2024
This is a guest blog post written by Dominic Tate, Associate Director, Head of Library Research Support
The University of Edinburgh’s Library Research Support Team, of which the Research Data Service is part of, won the ‘Outstanding Library Team of the Year’ category at the Times Higher Education Awards 2024 in Birmingham on 28th November. The team plays a central role in the institution’s transition to open research, with the impact of its work spreading far beyond the Scottish capital. The team created and implemented a UK-first rights retention policy, enabling scholarly work to be published in an open-access format while the authors retain the rights to their work.
Across the UK, 30 other universities have since followed Edinburgh’s lead, and the library team has also presented its work in India, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The team has already saved its university more than £10,000, with hundreds of thousands in savings anticipated in the years to come and millions expected across the broader university sector.
The library team’s new Citizen Science and Participatory Research Service, meanwhile, aims to boost public trust in science while facilitating research that depends on lived experience. By providing library spaces to researchers and community groups, the service enables collaborations on research projects, while the public can also access heritage collections and other library resources. The team endeavours to connect researchers with the communities around them, helping them answer research questions of public concern.
The judges applauded the Edinburgh library team’s initiative, commending its efforts to “share its experience with the wider sector” alongside its “emphasis on community access”. Its work, they said, “demonstrated a collaborative approach between the library research support team, academic and professional services staff, students and the local community that is scalable to other parts of the sector”.
You can read an e-book profiling all the winners.
Ideas in Motion: Mapping Lyell’s Transatlantic Lectures
As part of our goal to ‘create a complete, comprehensive, and enhanced online catalogue,’ one series emerged as particularly in need of attention: ‘Lectures.’ Lyell Intern Claire Bottoms took on the challenge of untangling the numerous, often complex manuscripts, working to bring clarity and accessibility to this crucial part of Lyell’s archive.
Hello, I’m Claire, an intern who has been working on the Charles Lyell Collection offprints over the last 7 months. As part of our efforts cataloguing the collection this Summer, we were able to extend our work to one final element that needed attention: Lyell’s series of lectures, delivered in the UK and the US between 1832-1853.
Charles Lyell’s 20-year career as a lecturer started with two years (1832-1833) in London at King’s College London and at the Royal Institution; and extended throughout his travels in the US (1841-1853), where he presented across New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Records of these lectures exist as part of his archive, gifted to the University by his family in 1927, with additional series coming in recent acquisitions in 2020. Historic cataloguing of this series has been limited to them being simply labelled as ‘Lyell Lectures’, but as we began to sort through them, it was evident that they were early in date, and documented his rewrites and learning. “He revised, rewrote and rethought each lecture before it was delivered”, observed Leonard Wilson in his book Lyell in America (p372). We established that they would really benefit from some serious re-ordering, additional context and detail.
Two printed Lecture cards, produced for the Lowell Lectures at Boston October – November 1845, Coll-203/B14/9.
Given that there are already some sources on Lyell’s lectures, which when pulled together, promised to a comprehensive overview of his work, and, that there was some apparent order of folders within boxes, as well as historic typed lists (compiled by Lyell scholar Martin Rudwick), we embarked on the task of compiling a timeline and order of events to make better sense of these records. We were also able to gather information from a variety of resources: online newspaper records, print resources, previous archival notes, as well as taking a close look at the records themselves, including lecture cards which detailed the contents, venues and topics of Lyell’s lectures. With time and effort, we were able to map across to the archives Lyell and his team had preserved (clerk George Hall, Mary Lyell and Arabella Buckley), his own collection of manuscripts, lecture notes and drafts, newspaper cuttings and correspondence.
A very useful table by Robert H Dott, which maps out the contents of Lyell’s lectures, 1832 through to 1852
Two key sources we used were written in the 1990s, one being Leonard Wilson’s Lyell in America (1998), which is only available in print, and no longer available to buy; luckily there is a copy at the University Library. We also used Robert H. Dott’s article ‘Charles Lyells debt to North America: his lectures and travels from 1841 to 1853‘ published by The Geological Society of London, 1998. In light of this, the construction of a new and updated timeline brought together information that was otherwise scattered and tricky to access – into a cohesive reference for Lyell’s lecture history.
Long notes, on blue paper, and short notes on white, prepared for Boston Lecture on Erratic Blocks, of Berkshire Massachusetts, 16 November 1852, reference Coll-203/B14/15.
Lyell appeared to work on, and organise his lecture notes, using a system of “long notes” (extended pieces of prose), and “short notes” (smaller booklets in numbered shorthand of the same content, often accompanied by timings and lists of illustrations). It is fascinating to see this process of writing, revising and refining his work, which allowed Lyell to hone his scientific ideas and communication skills; portions of these notes appear to make their way into Lyell’s later published works. Published sources describe Lyell as having been initially reluctant to teach and lecture, instead being eager to devote his time to his emerging writing career. The lecture series are credited with providing him with both the additional income, and the scientific recognition to do this. Notably, though Lyell was once a nervous public speaker (sources recount him dropping his notes once during his first lecture), this process likely helped develop a more polished and accessible approach.
Illustrations as delivered at the Lowell Lectures, Boston, 19 October 1852 – 26 November 1852, reference Coll-203/B14/15.
Original newspaper wrapping enclosing Lecture 5 Prose notes, from The Express, dated 19 March 1850, reference Coll-203/B14/12.
The archival records go beyond recording Lyell’s words, they also contain diagrams outlining Lyell’s plans for his lecture layouts, referencing the illustrations intended to support his presentations. It is apparent he travelled with these illustrations, as well as commissioning new ones on his way – sadly they’ve not survived, most likely victims of steamship voyages! Lyell’s lectures are also accompanied with older notes, articles and pieces of research that he brought together to use as material in his lectures. In many cases, all of these associated records are enclosed in newspaper wrappings. These wrappings added an unexpected additional layer of archival interest, and have been helpful in identifying the date, location and corresponding lecture.
Mapping Lyell’s selection of lecture materials has been a challenging changing process, with new pieces of information, resurfacing parts of the collection, and decisions regarding how to order the series emerging at every turn of the page! Yet, it has been incredibly fascinating and rewarding to see it all come together under a new timeline we are proud to have compiled and used to make sense of these folders, no longer only detailed as just ‘Lyell’s Lectures’.
Thank you, Claire, for transforming how Lyell’s ‘Lectures’ are presented in the catalogue. While still respecting the original acquisition details and their division into two sections, the information is now far more detailed. It reveals draft prose that Lyell would later incorporate into Principles, and, with the material now organized by lecture location, it’s much easier to trace how Lyell criss-crossed the Atlantic. Check out the details in sections Coll-203/8 and Coll-203/B14.
Celebrating the Presbyterian Church of South Formosa
In memory of the 70th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of South Formosa
南部基督長老教會設教七十週年紀念寫真帖
“In memory of the 70th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of South Formosa”
Yi-Chieh Chiu, Library Collections Services
During recent cataloguing work at New College Library, this interesting volume was discovered in the open access folio sequences and subsequently moved into New College Rare Books. The book is entitled In memory of the 70th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of South Formosa and there are very few extant copies of the original edition remaining, with only one known copy in Taiwan.
From Norwich to New College: Revelations of Divine Love and the NCL Collections
This blog post by Elin Crotty (Archive and Library Assistant, New College) spotlights some of the special collections material at New College Library, and explores the connections between our manuscripts, art, and published texts.
You may have heard of Julian of Norwich from an introductory English Literature course, or from a more specialised study of religious persons in the Middle Ages.[1] Julian, also known as Juliana, was a fourteenth-century anchoress at St Julian’s Church, Norwich – that is, she went into seclusion and was willingly walled into a cell in the church, with only a cat for company.[2] Her works, Revelations of Divine Love, are commonly viewed as the earliest English language writing that can undeniably be attributed to a woman. Revelations focusses on Julian’s visions (sometimes referred to as “showings”) of Christ during an illness, and she provides theological interpretation for some of the meaning behind her experiences. The work exists in two forms; the “Short Text”, which was written shortly after her illness, and the “Long Text”, which underwent many more versions and revisions.
Figure 1: Julian of Norwich, Grace Harriet Warrack, Methuen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
We do not hold a copy of Julian’s “Short Text” in the archives at New College – our collections are quite impressive, but sadly the original manuscript is lost.[3] The “Long Text” also only exists through copies, which were made by sixteenth and seventeenth century nuns. Versions are currently held by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (MS Fonds Anglais 40), the British Library (MS Sloane 2499 and MS Sloane 3705), Westminster Cathedral (MS 4 (W)), and a few other partial copies and extracts also remain.[4] There was not a printed version of either the short or the long text available until 1670, when Serenus Cressy, a Benedictine monk, published a copy in Paris. This was reissued in 1843 and 1864, and the text began to become more well-known with the 1901 publication of a modern English version by Grace Warrack. This version featured an illustrated title page by the artist Phoebe Anna Traquair.
You may be asking by now, what does this actually have to do with the New College Library collections? Well, ongoing improvements to the archives catalogue have recently brought MS CRE out in the Funk Reading Room. It’s a manuscript copy of the Long Text, but all it not quite as it seem here. Rather than being a copy of another manuscript, MS CRE is a wonderful example of a published book that was then copied entirely back into a manuscript format. This may have been done as an exercise of devotion (given the religious topic), or perhaps for more practical purposes such as saving cost and practicing italic calligraphy.[5] The scribe – unknown to us – carefully copied the format of the title page and printing details, as well as clarifying annotations that would have been printed in the margins. There is an inscription ‘Jean Thomas’ on the front flyleaf opposite the title page, and some twirly pen trials where a past reader scribbled away with no discernible purpose. Unfortunately, we’ve no way of knowing whether Jean wrote the book themselves, or if they were a former owner at some later date. It has laid paper with clear chain lines and a distinct watermark. The quarto volume is half bound, with fairly basic materials; the boards are cardboard and show signs of previous repairs.
Figure 2: Pages from MS CRE. New College Library Special Collections, University of Edinburgh.
MS CRE is not the only copy of Revelations in our collections, or our only link to the history of the text. We also have tJG4JUL 1901, which is a copy of Warrack’s 1901 edition.[6] Art commissioned by Grace Warrack is all around us at New College, as Warrack gifted the stained-glass windows in the Library Hall. The artist who designed and created them, Douglas Strachan, spent over 20 years working very closely with Warrack. Warrack was averse to featuring depictions of suffering and evil in the biblical scenes, which may be why it took so long to plan and implement the windows.[7] At that time, the Library Hall was positioned elsewhere in the New College, and the beautiful stained glass adorned the High Kirk of the Free Church of Scotland.
Figure 3: Left: Gen.852, f.3r. Heritage Collections, University of Edinburgh. Centre: MS WHY 42, f.2r. New College Library Special Collections, University of Edinburgh. Right: Window 10 of Library Hall.
Additionally, further creations by the artist Phoebe Anna Traquair can be found in both the New College Library collections and at the Centre for Research Collections, in the Main Library. Our item is a beautiful presentation piece that sits within the collection MS WHY (Papers of Rev Prof Alexander Whyte (1836-1921)), which was given to Prof. Whyte in 1898 by the Young Women’s Class, to congratulate him on his appointment as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Only the first few pages of the volume are illuminated, and the rest of the text is a list of signatures. The Traquair work at the Centre for Research Collections is known as Gen.852. It is a book of reproductions of the beautiful medallions painted on the walls of the Song School, St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, 1897.[8]
If you would like more information about the New College Library Special Collections, or to book a research appointment in the Funk Reading Room, please email us at heritagecollections@ed.ac.uk. We are open to all; new and experienced researchers, staff, students, and members of the public – anyone with a desire to explore our collections is more than welcome to get in touch. The Heritage Collections team would be thrilled to support your research and provide expert curatorial advice. You can find links to our catalogues and further information on accessing our collections on our webpages.
Post written by Elin Crotty, Archive and Library Assistant (New College)
[1] For a very thorough overview, see Markham, Ian S. The Student’s Companion to the Theologians, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ed/detail.action?docID=7103732.
[2] Julian is sometimes referred to as the patron saint of cats, or as the original “cat lady”. Here’s a podcast by Dr. Jesse Njus and E.H. Lupton, which explores the connection between anchorites and cats in more detail. Njus and Lupton. ‘Episode 5: Hermits and Anchoresses’ in Ask a Medievalist. 14 May 2020. Notes accessed 20 November 2024 via http://askamedievalist.com/2020/05/14/episode-5-hermits-and-anchoresses/
[3] The only known copy of the short text is British Library, Add MS 37790, which dates to around 1420. https://www.umilta.net/tablet.html
[4] Possibly the most comprehensive resource for exploring the various manuscripts of Revelations is Julia Bolton Holloway’s ‘Julian of Norwich, her Showing of Love and its contexts’. Published in The Tablet, 1996. Accessed online 20 November 2024 via https://www.umilta.net/tablet.html
[5] Whilst writing this blog post, I went down a wonderful rabbit hole trying to find out how much a book like Revelations would have cost in 1670. The answer is, it really depends – on the covers and binding, on the size of the type and the volume, on the materials used, and on the size of the print run. This article by David McKitterick has information about an upper-class family’s account books and purchasing habits for their library in the early to mid-17th Century. The books they purchased were anywhere between just a few pence and several pounds per volume – that’s from less than a fiver up to several hundred pounds in today’s money. McKitterick, David. “‘Ovid with a Littleton’: The cost of English books in the early seventeenth century”. Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, vol. 11, no. 2, 1997, pp. 184–234. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41154865. Accessed 20 November 2024
[6] You can read more about Grace Warrack and tJG4JUL 1901 in this blog post here: The woman behind the windows at New College Library | New College Librarian. There are several notes between Warrack and the New College Librarian interleaved in the pages.
[7] If you’d like to know more about our amazing windows, please visit the reception desk in the Library Hall and pick up a leaflet. You can also see another of Strachan’s windows in the Martin Hall at New College – catch a glimpse on the School of Divinity website here: https://exhibition.div.ed.ac.uk/martin-hall/
[8] The full catalogue entry is available here: https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/219
Celebrating a new batch of recordings just added to the RESP website
The factory floor in Brunton’s wire mill, Musselburgh. Thanks to the John Gray Centre Archive for sharing this image with us. (ref. ic-af-229)
For this blog post, which marks the most recent upload of recordings onto the RESP Archive website, we are delighted to hear from Mark Mulhern, Senior Research Fellow with the EERC and lead for the RESP Spoken Word strand.
This latest batch of recordings to be added to the RESP Archive website is in some ways representative of how the RESP goes about including different voices in its collection. Within this batch, which includes 24 fieldwork interviews, we have recollections about:
- The mills in Musselburgh – Brunton’s, Stuart’s and Inveresk paper mill
- One man’s (David Elder) recollections of his early life, National Service and more
- Recollections for workers at a number of enterprises at Gateside Industrial Park, Haddington
- One woman’s (Sheila Murray) recollections of her life in Peebles and her connections to the textile mills in the town
- A recording made in 1973 of Mrs Blacklock on the occasion of her 100th birthday
Friends Sheila Fraser and Kathryn McMillan shared their memories of working together in the Brunton’s wire mill offices (EL6/21)
Within this batch of recordings there is a variety in content and also in the way in which these recordings became part of the RESP:
- The Musselburgh Mills recordings came about as a result of new fieldwork conducted by myself, largely within Musselburgh Museum.
- David’s recording was made by an existing group within the John Gray Centre – the Active Memories Group.
- The interviews of those who worked at the various industrial enterprises at Gateside in Haddington were conducted by members of Haddington’s History Society as part of a project that they ran in partnership with the RESP.
- Sheila’s recording was made by my colleague Caroline Milligan. This interview came about as a result of Sheila having read and enjoyed our recently published book Border Mills: Lives of Peeblesshire Textile Workers
- The recording of Mrs Blacklock was donated to the RESP as a result of Mrs Blacklock’s grandson – her interviewer in 1973 – coming across our work in D&G and asking if we would be interested in adding his recording of his granny to the RESP Collection
As can be readily discerned, material comes to the RESP in a variety of ways. The common factor with this batch of recordings is that their inclusion came about as a result of the RESP being active within and receptive to the communities with which we work with. This is true of this batch of recordings and also reflects the wider ethos of the RESP in which we seek to enable communities to create, preserve and share their recollections.
Another salient point about this batch of recordings is the variety of content. These 24 recordings cover industrial employment, childhood, National Service, work in a number of mills across lowland Scotland and the recollections of a lady who was born in 1873. This diversity is also reflected across the wider RESP Collection.
David Dixon (EL6/24) shared memories of his working life and connections to Brunton’s wire mill.
This range is in and of itself of great importance to the RESP as we seek to provide a space to enable folk to talk about what is of interest to them. Such an approach almost inevitably leads to a collection with diverse content. That diversity of content is a reflection of what is of interest to people in different places. A collection of individuals speaking about what is of interest to them tells us what is of importance to them. In this way, the RESP is establishing a body of work that, for now and the future, tells us something about the commonalities and differences of lives lived in different places and at different times across Scotland. Key to enabling this is the open and receptive approach taken in conducting and managing the RESP.
The Tandberg Goats were moved to their current location in Haddington after Mitsubishi took over the Tandberg plant at Gateside.
This work continues!
Mark Mulhern
Nov 2024
Protocols.io Update
Our Open Research Coordinator, Kerry Miller, has written the following update to users of the protocols.io platform at the University of Edinburgh. While this relates directly to researchers at the University of Edinburgh, the issues raised neatly highlight the challenges and barriers that open research still faces more broadly.
On the 31st December 2024 our subscription to protocols.io will end and we have taken the difficult decision not to renew it. The reason for this is that in 2023 the company that developed protocols.io sold it to the academic publisher Springer Nature and they have decided to impose an increase in subscription cost of over 700% for 2025. Until now the subscription costs have been met from library budgets, if we continued the subscription we would need to start recouping costs directly from users and these would be somewhere in the region of £250-300 per person for 2025.
We have carefully evaluated how protocols.io is being used by staff and students and we do not feel that we can justify spending so much more for membership of this platform or that the majority of current users would be willing or able to meet the costs from their current grants. We realise that this will be disappointing and inconvenient for researchers and the Research Data Service team is here to help. If you have any questions about how this change will impact you please read the FAQ and if that does not answer all of your questions, or you would like support moving to another platform please email us using data-support@ed.ac.uk.
You can find out more on our protocols.io page https://library.ed.ac.uk/research-support/research-data-service/during/open-research-tools/protocols
Online exhibition now live: Rewriting the Script
We are delighted to announce the launch of “Rewriting the Script”: a new online exhibition and research resource celebrating the life and works of Esther Inglis, curated by Anna-Nadine Pike. This exhibition forms one of the major outputs of the “Esther Inglis 2024” project at Edinburgh University Library. It is the result of several years of research and many months of curation, supported by the invaluable assistance of librarians and digital archivists across the globe who have provided new digital imagery of Inglis’ manuscripts to aid in the telling of her remarkable story. The exhibition displays nearly half of Esther Inglis’ known surviving manuscripts, and contains links to all of the currently-available digital imagery of her work. Structured by nine different sections, this exhibition celebrates the diversity of Esther Inglis’ identity — as scribe, artist, author, mother, and as a truly exceptional Jacobean woman.
The exhibition has been titled “Rewriting the Script: the works and words of Esther Inglis” — and the different levels to this name are intentional. As a scribe, Esther Inglis’ work was to write and rewrite the many individual scripts which she learned from her mother and from the publications of contemporary writing masters. She worked in more scripts than anyone else from her time, man or woman, professional or pupil. But through her scribal activity, her artistry, the intricacy of her work and her involvement in wider social or literary circles, she also endlessly rewrote the script for an early-modern woman in Scotland or England — known within the Jacobean court and receiving a level of education unparalleled for a non-aristocratic woman.
A further layer of “rewriting”, which formed part of the process of curating this exhibition, is the rewriting of how Esther Inglis is known to us today. “Rewriting the Script” emphasises that Esther Inglis was not just a calligrapher — she was a scribe, but she was also an artist with the pen and with the needle, she was an illuminator or limner, she was a portrait miniaturist, a literary author. And, woven into all these facets of her identity, she was a wife, a daughter of refugees, and a mother to eight children.
“Rewriting the Script” has been designed as an immersive and interactive online exhibition — alongside the curated images of Inglis’ surviving manuscripts, for example, the exhibition also includes many different audio clips. Listening to the integrated audio, a visitor can hear the ‘voices’ of Esther Inglis and her husband Bartilmo Kello reading from their own manuscripts — as well as longer interview-style pieces with modern scholars, and even the actor Gerda Stevenson reading her own poem, Nine Haiku for Esther Inglis. Adding to its interactivity, the exhibition also incorporates several videos filmed with the National Library of Scotland. These videos facilitate close-up viewing of Inglis’ books while also allowing viewers to deepen their understanding of particular manuscripts. In the example below, the video compares one of Esther Inglis’ manuscripts from 1607 to a Flemish medieval manuscript produced in the early 1500s which then circulated in Scotland, and it explores the connection between their artistic styles.
Another possibility offered by an online exhibition is also the potential for close looking – guiding a
viewer through different parts of a particular image. “Rewriting the Script” includes several interactive images which enable close-up encounters with the items displayed — from Esther Inglis’ own self-portraits to an immersive ‘early modern writing desk’. Scrolls through each page, the curation of images also moves between close-ups, magnification, and books held within the palm of the hand, and this is designed to immerse a viewer in the intricacy of Esther Inglis’ work, while still capturing the miniature nature of many of her books.
The final section of this exhibition considers the afterlives of Esther Inglis’ manuscripts — what has happened to these books in the 400 years since their first creation, from journeys to different libraries, to readers’ additions to their pages, to the beginnings of academic conversations around Inglis and her work. It is the hope of the “Esther Inglis 2024” project that this new online exhibition will allow these conversations to continue — while also moving beyond academic spaces, bringing Esther Inglis’ story and her manuscripts to wider audiences. “Rewriting the Script” has been designed as an engaging exhibition which is aimed at the general public, but grounded within the latest scholarly and archival research.
Visit the exhibition here.
We would welcome your feedback on “Rewriting the Script”! Comment your thoughts below, and we would be very glad to hear from you.
Library Research Support Shortlisted for Times Higher Education Award
This is a guest blog post written by Dominic Tate, Associate Director, Head of Library Research Support
We were delighted to learn that the Library Research Support Team, of which the Research Data Service is a part of, has been shortlisted for ‘Outstanding Library Team of the Year’ in the 2024 Times Higher Education (THE) Awards. These prestigious national awards are sometimes dubbed the “Oscars of higher education” and we understand that there were a record number of submissions this year.
This nomination reflects the pioneering work the team has done in the area of rights retention, open research and citizen science.
Members of the Library Research Support Team will be attending a black tie dinner and award ceremony in Birmingham on 28th November; competition is fierce and there are some excellent entries, so please keep your fingers crossed for us.
The Great Fire of Edinburgh, 1824
This year marks the bicentenary of one of the most destructive events in Edinburgh’s history, the ‘Great Fire’ of 15-21 November 1824. In this blog, Ash Mowat, a volunteer in the Civic Engagement Team, will explore a set of engravings that vividly depict the devastation caused by the fire. They are the work of the Edinburgh-based artist William Home Lizars (1788-1859), who published eight images of the ruins to raise funds for those left homeless by the fire. Edinburgh University Library’s copy of this set (shelfmark JZ 449) bears an inscription to ‘Henry McKenzie Esq.’, very probably the Edinburgh novelist Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), author of The Man of Feeling.
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- Front cover of Lizars’ ‘Eight Engravings of the Ruins Occasioned by the Great Fires in Edinburgh’ (JZ 449)
The fire broke out on 15 November 1824 and raged for over five days before it was finally extinguished. It caused considerable damage with the destruction of entire tenement blocks and around 400 homes, together with the loss of printmakers, shops, and other businesses. Tragically, thirteen people lost their lives in the incident, although, given the scale of the fire, this may seem mercifully less than could have been the case. The cause of the fire was never identified, but it is not difficult to imagine how it might have occurred and why it was able to spread over such a large area and endure for so long a span of time. This was a densely populated zone with packed tenement buildings of up to seven storeys in height. All residences utilised open fires as their source of heat and for cooking, and the buildings themselves featured timber floorings and internal frames, enabling flames to flourish and spread.
William Home Lizars was an accomplished and celebrated painter, draughtsman, and engraver, who was involved in the establishment of the Royal Scottish Academy. His engravings consist of eight images taken between Wednesday 17 November and Saturday 20 November.
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- ‘In the Old Assembly Close, 17th November 1824’ (JZ 449)
The above image shows the abject ruins on Old Assembly Close, where the fire first broke out, destroying four tenements and the Assembly Hall ballroom. It’s a brilliant composition in its concentrated focus on the collapsed debris with no background adornment or surrounding buildings. Instead, we face the exposed interiors and remains of the once impressive buildings, reduced to ruins and rubble. It is very highly detailed and has an almost organic quality to its textures and tones. It is a fine, poignant ode to the devastating impact of the fire that destroyed numerous homes, leaving hundreds of families homeless.
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- ‘View from the Old Fish Market Close’ (JZ 449)
In the image above we have the view from Old Fishmarket Close, a narrow passageway running off the High Street, where four six-storey tenement buildings and one business, Neil and Co. printworks, were destroyed in the fire. Like Old Assembly Close, Old Fishmarket Close survives to this day but has been subject to new building developments in the intervening period.
It is a nicely composed piece, which shows the close rising towards the towering tenements of the High Street, with the spire of St Giles Cathedral just off-centre to the right. The engraving captures the aftermath of the fire revealing the scant remains of the frames of the tenements that were damaged beyond repair and would later have to be demolished and rebuilt. There is an interesting contrast between areas of finely rendered detail and the looser depiction of the ruined structures. The chiaroscuro fluctuations in the use of light and dark give the image a three-dimensional feel.
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- ‘Appearance of the Ruins on the East Side of the Parliament Square the Instant After the Mines Were Sprung at Noon on Sat[urda]y 20th Nov. 1824’ (JZ 449)
The dramatic image above is taken on 20 November, one day before the fire was fully extinguished, and reveals the impact on the eastern side of Parliament Square when mines were detonated to bring down teetering, fire-ravaged tenements. Our eyes are drawn to the centre of the piece as the remains of the buildings begin to crumble to the ground. To give a highly effective impression of scale, we have a tiny single figure at the foot of the tenements, perhaps orchestrating the operation, as plumes of dust and debris bring both movement and energy to the image.
It would be interesting to know how well tolerated and accommodated an artist would have been amidst the efforts of the firefighters and others to stem the fire and make the area safe. Obviously, we are in a pre-photographic era here so artists would be the only means to capture the events, so presumably someone with the renown and skill of Lizars would have been an authorised and approved presence at the scene.
A curious coincidence with the timing of the fire was that just one month earlier Edinburgh had established the world’s first municipal fire brigade service, led by firefighter and Master of Engines James Braidwood (1800-1861). No blame for the fire damage was laid upon the newly founded service or upon Braidwood’s leadership. Rather, he was praised for his bravery and diligence in fighting and subduing the fire, and in utilising new skills and processes to do so. See the Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage’s Our Origin Story for more on the history of the Fire Service in Scotland.
I’d like to thank my supervisor Laura Beattie (University of Edinburgh Community Engagements Officer) for guidance and support, and to Paul Barnaby (Modern Literary Collections Curator) for suggesting the subject. Further thanks also to all the staff at the Centre for Research Heritage Collections for enabling access to view these items.
History of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies
Today we are publishing an article by Ash Mowat, a volunteer in the Civic Engagement team, on the history of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. You can read a previous blog about the fascinating history of vivisection, as relating to material held in our archives, here.
In this blog we shall explore some items pertaining to the history of the Royal (Dick) Veterinary School in Edinburgh and of its founder William Dick,[1] held within the University of Edinburgh’s Heritage Collections.
In the image above we have a copy of an engraving depicting the location of William Dick’s birth as included in items celebrating the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Edinburgh Veterinary School, and listed below are some key dates outlining the history.[2]
1793: William Dick was born in White House Close Edinburgh, the son of a blacksmith.
1823: William Dick opened his first veterinary School in makeshift accommodation with the financial assistance of the Directors of the Highland and Agricultural Society.
1833: Purpose made buildings were created for William Dick’s Veterinary School and Practice in Clyde Street Edinburgh.
1844: Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons was formed. Dick’s College affiliated to, and the students examined, by this institution.
1866: William Dick died and bequeathed his school to the Town Council of Edinburgh.
1906: The School was renamed as the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College, a change that his sister Mary campaigned to precipitate in recognition of his work in establishing and developing it.
1911: Edinburgh University first created a degree level qualification in Veterinary medicine.
1914: The new building at Summerhall was built with the transfer and relocation of the School from Clyde Steet to its new premises completed by 1916.
1973: Celebration of the 150th anniversary of the school’s foundation.
The next set of items from the collection that I viewed was a bound volume of newspaper clippings dating from 1923 to 1929. [3]
In an article from the Scottish Country Life publication of November 1923, there was a feature to celebrate the then 100th anniversary of the foundation of the school. It cites how its founder William Dick came from a humble background into a family affected by poverty and deprivation, and that therefore the opportunities available to him to pursue an academic career at the time were scant to say the least. Remarkably, however, William Dick managed to overcome such barriers to first study and then devote his life to teaching and practicing Veterinary Medicine, donating considerable sums of his own money to the creation of the Veterinary School, and upon his death bequeathing his entire estate to its continuation and development.
The article tells us that, as part of the anniversary celebrations, a fundraising project was launched in his honour. “The scheme is one that should appeal to all lovers of animals, for the more knowledge is accumulated, the greater will be the possibility of diminishing animal suffering. Nowadays, not only does the science concern itself with the treatment of animal ailments, it also touches very closely the health and well-being of the people.”
In another piece from the North British Agriculturalist of 22nd November 1923, we learn a little more about Dick’s early interest and activities in the field of Veterinary medicine. From 1893 a Professor McCall observed that “Mr William Dick was born in the court end of the Canongate (Edinburgh) in 1793. His father was a blacksmith and farrier and in his early life he followed in his father’s vocation. Happening to attend a couple of popular lectures delivered in connection with the Edinburgh University, his attention was in that way directed to the importance and value of veterinary science, and shortly after that he went to the Royal Veterinary College (London) where he took his diploma in 1818.”
It is remarkable how a seemingly random encounter with the science first sparked an interest in William Dick that was to become his life’s passion, and evidence of the huge importance then and now in universities also opening up some lectures to those not enrolled as students, in widening the access opportunities to people who might otherwise have had their potential overlooked.
In the Glasgow Herald of 30th November 1923, there is an interesting article covering a speech made by Field Marshall Earl Haig[4] made at the Music Hall Edinburgh on the role of animals in veterinary medicine during the first World War. He recounts how the expeditionary forces started with around 53,000 horses rising to and astonishing number of 475,000. He observes that it was as a result of the many advances in the understanding and treatment of animal diseases that this was made possible, and further cites how such scientific endeavours help eradicate foot and mouth disease amongst the military’s horses, and to prevent it from being transferred over to affect livestock back in Britain.
(From the North British Agriculturist 0f 20th October 1925 and image celebrating the opening of the Summerhall location for the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College, and an accompanying article citing to total cost of the building as £75,000 (equivalent to almost six million pounds today).
The Daily Express from 20th October 1929 had a short article addressing the pressure on the Dick Vet to admit women as students and a somewhat reluctant response from the college. “Greater numbers of men and women are entering the profession. The number of students is increasing here as it is in other centres, and extension will probably be needed. Nothing can be done without the sanction of the Royal College of Surgeons who control the (Dick Vet) College and they will probably be asked to consider the question”. Women were first admitted as undergraduates at the University of Edinburgh in 1892 with the first women graduating in 1893 but only in certain subjects.[5] Whilst some other institutions permitted women to study veterinary medicine earlier than others, the first women, known as the “Dick Vet Four”, completed the five-year veterinary course at Dick Vet and qualified in 1948. They were Ann C. Preston, Marjorie E. Millar, Elizabeth A. Copland, and Elizabeth A.Y. Caird.
In the final set of items that I viewed were papers relating to an exhibition of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Dick Vet. [6]
In ‘The Life and Works of William Dick’ by J.E. Phillips,[7] this affectionate and informative essay gives further insight into the life and achievements of William Dick. We learn that it was after hearing a lecture by Doctor Barclay that William Dick first encountered the field of science that was to transform his life and become his passion. Dr Barclay was very impressed by William Dick and when he heard other students refer to him disparagingly as a common blacksmith, was reported to have commented “Well, well, all I can say is that whether he be blacksmith or whitesmith, he is the cleverest chap amongst you.”[8]
Dick moved to London in the autumn of 1817 to undertake his study at the Veterinary School there, and astonishingly achieved his diploma in just three months. He then returned to Edinburgh as he was not enamoured of life in London.
On his return he began to provide lectures and teaching to students but initially had just four students, and these were later depleted to just the one. Nevertheless, he did not become dismayed but instead persisted and persevered in his work and by 1823 he had been recognised and enabled to open his first full Veterinary School and practice. Ten years later he personally invested £2500 of his own funds to substantially upgrade the premises at Clyde Street,[9] to include a lecture hall, dissecting room and museum.
Throughout his career he undertook the training of over 800 students who successfully went on to obtain their diplomas, and also taught some 1000 more who attended his lectures but were unable to enrol as students formally or otherwise to complete their diploma. In addition to those academic students, he devoted much time in instructing those working in agriculture with care needs for livestock, in order to teach them how best to look after their animals and to prevent and identify disease.
He was very close to his elder sister Mary who survived him by over twenty years until her death in 1883. She enabled the College to be renamed in her brothers honour as the Royal (Dick) Vet, and was instrumental and a significant leader in the management and running of the Veterinary College since its inception in 1823, and continued to do so throughout her life.
It was truly fascinating and a privilege to view these historical items and I would encourage anyone with an interest to consider exploring these further. I should like to thank my supervisor Laura Beattie (Community Engagement Officer University of Edinburgh) and Fiona Menzies (Project Archivist One Health University of Edinburgh) for their assistance and support. I should also like to thank all the University of Edinburgh staff at the Centre for Research Collections for their kindness, expertise and in enabling me to view these treasures.
[1] https://www.ed.ac.uk/vet/about/history/william-dick
[2] https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/217989
[3] https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/213444
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Haig,_1st_Earl_Haig
[5] https://collections.ed.ac.uk/alumni/women
[6] https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/217989
[7] J.E. Phillips, ‘The Life and Work of William Dick,’ British Veterinary Journal, 149.4 (1993), 321 – 330.
[8] Ibid, 323.
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