The Humble Spider – A Measure of Moral Character in Physical Education

Posted on July 23, 2020 by emacgillivray

In this week’s blog post we take a closer look at the Dunfermline College of Physical Education Archives and attempt to join up the dots between the humble spider and the history of physical education in Scotland. Starting with the spider…

There are more than 45,000 species of spider found world-wide. An arachnid, they belong to a class of arthropods that include scorpions, mites and ticks. They can range in size from 0.11 inches (the tiny Samoan) to almost a foot (the Goliath birdeater tarantula). Metric, that’s around 2.5 mm up to 30.5 cm, or from a pin-head up to the length of your average class-room ruler. While a handful are dangerous to humans, the vast majority of spiders are harmless. They are critical to controlling insect populations.

The Jumping Spider – which can jump up to 50 times its own length

Take a closer look at the humble spider and you’ll discover some surprising athletic prowess. The jumping spider can jump up to an impressive 50 times their body length. That’s the equivalent of a human jumping higher than a 25 storey building. The male Peacock spider lifts its legs and shakes its body in synchronised movements in order to attract mates. And every spider produces silk, the strong, flexible protein fibre which they use to build webs, to travel, to anchor themselves for jumping, and to float serenely along in the wind. Allegedly, the silk is so strong that it can absorb three times as much energy as Kevlar, the material used to make bulletproof vests.

Since ancient times, throughout the world, the spider has featured in folklore and cultural tradition. This nifty creature has been assigned a variety of moral attributes and character traits. In some cultural traditions, the spider is seen as an evil arch-intriguer, weaving webs of duplicity, designed to entrap the innocent. In others, it is cast as a model of industry, wisdom and foresight. From Persia to Poland, spiders and caves have featured in the folklore of Kings and Prophets. A Jewish story tells of a spider protecting King David, who was hiding from King Saul, by weaving a protective web across the mouth of a cave. The Story of Hijrah from the Islamic faith tells the story of a spider spinning a web in a cave to protect the Prophet Muhammad.

Here in Scotland, many will be familiar with the fabled encounter of King Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) with a spider, first popularised by Sir Walter Scott in his series ‘Tales of a Grandfather’ (1828-1830). The story goes that after defeat by Edward I at the Battle of Methven (1306), a dispirited and demoralised Bruce fled into hiding. Holed up in a cave, Bruce observed a spider stoically attempt time and again to spin its web. Every time the spider fell, it began again, until at last, the web was spun. Inspired by the tenacious spider, Bruce is alleged to have told his troops, prior to defeating the English at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again”. Bruce reigned King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329, and is somewhat revered as a national hero in Scotland.

Lithograph of Dunfermline Abbey by T. Picken after D.O. Hill, 1847-1854 (Corson P.4114)

Dunfermline, the former capital of Scotland, has a long standing connection with Scottish kings. On his death in 1329, Robert the Bruce was the last of seven Scottish kings to be buried at Dunfermline Abbey. Sensationally, his remains were uncovered in 1818 and then re-interred at the Abbey in 1819. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, in 1891, the pulpit at Dunfermline Abbey was moved back and a monumental brass inserted to indicate the position of the royal vault.

Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist, was born in Dunfermline in 1835. Carnegie was born just over fifteen years after the re-interment of Robert the Bruce at Dunfermline Abbey and only five years after Scott published his ‘Tales of a Grandfather’ featuring the legend of Robert the Bruce and the spider. The works of Scott were prominent in Carnegie’s education, enthusiastically relayed to him by his uncle, George Lauder, Snr. Carnegie’s ancestors had also been tenants on Broomhall Estate, the family home of Robert the Bruce’s descendants.

An embroidered spider motif on the front cover of the Dunfermline College of Physical Education Old Students’ Association Minute Book, 1912-1973 (Ref: EUA GD55/1/1/2)

Perhaps it is no surprise then, that the Carnegie funded Dunfermline College of Physical Education (DCPE), founded in 1905, should adopt the humble spider as its emblem. Its motto “Efforts are Successes” a distillation of Robert the Bruce’s alleged message to his troops. By 1905, Robert the Bruce and his spider were embedded in Scottish cultural tradition as a symbol of perseverance in the face of adversity. It is also fitting that this little creature assigned with traits of patience, dedication, resolve and resilience, and seemingly super-power athletic ability should become the lauded symbol of the college graduates.

The DCPE spider pops up in all manner of places throughout the the institution’s archives. The first minute book of the DCPE Old Students’ Association (OSA), which dates from 1912, features the spider motif intricately embroidered on its cloth cover. Open the cover and you will find revealed a controversy around the college brooch and its spider design. The minutes of 29 March 1929 read:

The Dunfermline College of Physical Education Brooch. Image courtesy of Lorna M. Campbell

The question of our badge having been raised. Mrs Manifold [the President of the Association] said it had been brought to her notice that our badge, not being registered, could be sold by Messrs R.W. Forsyth to any one who asked for it. She also said that she knew of a small shop-keeper who was making our pocket badge and had sold at least fifty, not necessarily to our members.

Inquiries were made to the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust (who owned the badge) to permit the spider design to be registered. Forsyth’s (a department store with premises in Edinburgh and Glasgow) offered to pay for the registration and were ‘prepared to protect their registration even to the point of a law-suit’ so strong were their feelings about the matter. Forsyth’s also committed to only sell badges to proven DCPE OSA members.

DCPE was founded as an instrument for improving the general health of the child but the story of the spider tells us it was about more than physical health. DCPE students and graduates were encouraged to align themselves to values of respectability, refinement, poise, deportment, and decorum. The moral standing and character of DCPE students was central to their teaching and their distinct identity in this area the source of some pride and cause for protection.

With growing secularisation, questions around how we shape the moral character and civic duty of society are as important now as ever before. Social and moral concepts such as loyalty, dedication, sacrifice, team-work, good citizenship, fairness, justice and responsibility are all tied up in the ethos of sports. But has the development of specialist sub-disciplines such as bio-mechanics, exercise physiology, sport psychology and motor learning led to a marginalisation of the social dimension of physical education? Has the renaming of physical education to ‘schools of exercise’ and ‘sports studies’ diluted its moral character? Does it matter? Asking these questions might lead us not just to a better understanding of the history of physical education, but of the human experience as a whole.

There are many ‘spider’ like stories to be found in the archives. This is one of thousands just waiting to be discovered. It is by uncovering and examining these stories that archives can help us to understand our past and our present, and subsequently, shape our future.

The records Dunfermline College of Physical Education and its’ Old Students Association are held at the University of Edinburgh Archives. You can search the catalogues of the Old Students’ Association online:
Dunfermline College of Physical Education Old Students’ Association
The catalogue of the college records will be made available online soon as part of our Wellcome Research Resource-funded ‘Body Language’ archive cataloguing project.

Sources and further reading:

The National Geographic – Spiders
On Walter Scott’s ‘Tales of a Grandfather’
Isabella C. MacLean, The History of Dunfermline College of Physical Education, (1976).
Phillips, M.G., Roper, A.P., History of Physical Education in ‘Handbook of Physical Education’ (2006).
On Andrew Carnegie

With thanks to Clare Button for her background research of the minutes of the DCPE OSA (Ref: EUA GD55/1/1/2).

The Forsaken Mermaid

Posted on July 16, 2020 by emacgillivray

This week we dig a little deeper into the story behind a document that was conserved in the course of our project work in 2018, and discover legendary sea creatures and a folk-tale inspired Scottish ballet.

In 2018, project archivist, Clare Button, made a discovery: Margaret Morris’ copy of Erik Chisholm’s musical score for ‘The Forsaken Mermaid’, the first ever full length Scottish ballet. Clare made the remarkable find during her tenacious work to sort and catalogue over 300 boxes of archive material which make up the Margaret Morris Archives. The collection, which covers almost a century of movement, dance and art in Scotland, was donated to the Fergusson Gallery in Perth in 2010. It forms one of three collections included in our ‘Body Language’ project.

The Forsaken Mermaid manuscript before treatment (Ref: 2010.718)

On discovering the manuscript, which is dated to around 1936, Clare found it in rather poor condition. There were multiple tears to the edges of the paper and evidence of some well-intended but rather non-expert repairs. She carefully packed up the fragile volume and arranged for it to be transported by expert couriers to specialist conservators at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections.

On arrival at the University of Edinburgh’s main library, the volume was unpacked by the conservation team in the bright, clinically clean, fifth-floor conservation studio. Amidst a hive of conservation activity (from re-binding rare seventeenth-century books to repairing early twentieth-century glass plate negatives), this curious manuscript met with experienced book and paper conservation student, Lisa Behrens.

Book and paper conservation student, Lisa Behrens, carefully removing adhesive tape from the Forsaken Mermaid mansucript

Lisa’s first task was to dry-clean the volume and then, over two days, she painstakingly removed multiple layers of adhesive tape and binding threads. Each of the individual sheets were repaired using Japanese paper, pressed overnight and then re-sewn using a French sewing technique. This ensured that the conservation treatment did not damage the volume further and helps to protect it from further damage while still allowing it to be accessible to researchers.

A University of Edinburgh alumni (1931 and 1934), Erik Chisholm (1904-1965) was a leading Scottish modernist composer. Glasgow born Chisholm jointly founded the Celtic Ballet with Margaret Morris. At the age of 34, he was appointed Celtic Ballet’s director of music in 1938, although he had composed the musical score for ‘The Forsaken Mermaid’ earlier, in 1936. The choreography for ‘The Forsaken Mermaid’ was by Morris and the set and costumes by the artist, and then principal of Glasgow School of Art, Andrew Taylor-Elder (1908-1966). Celtic Ballet performed ‘The Forsaken Mermaid’, their inaugural production, at the Lyric Theatre, Glasgow, on 6 December 1940.

A curious folk-tale, ‘The Forsaken Mermaid’ features those legendary supernatural sea people, human from the head to the waist but with a fish tail instead of legs. There are many folk-tales of love stories and marriages between a mermaid and a man, some have even claimed descent from such a union. This particular story takes place under and on the water and partly on land. ‘The Forsaken Mermaid’ tells the story of a mermaid who fell in love with a man when she is caught in a fisherman’s net. But the man grows tired of her and she returns to the sea in despair. The sea-people seek revenge in a terrible storm, drowning the fishermen. The mermaid pleads for the life of her love.

Subsequent Celtic Ballet productions were set to Scottish themes and incorporated elements of Margaret Morris Movement, Scottish country and Highland dance styles. Celtic Ballet went on to tour in Europe, Russia and the United States of America. They were one of the first British companies to perform in France after the second world war. Chisholm went on to be appointed the Principal of the College of Music at the University of Capetown where he remained until his death in 1965. He held a lifelong interest in Scottish music and published a collection of Celtic folk-songs in 1964.

The Forsaken Mermaid manuscript after treatment (Ref: 2010.718)

This annotated manuscript is evidence of just one of multiple collaborations with artists that Margaret Morris spearheaded, which can be found throughout the collection. Since undergoing successful conservation treatment, it has now been returned to its home at the Fergusson Gallery at Perth. While the gallery remains closed for the time-being (July 2020) in line with Scottish Government guidance on coronavirus restrictions, there are lots of sources online where you can find out more.

You can read more about the conservation treatment of the volume on Centre for Research Collections conservation blog ‘To Protect and (Con)serve’.
We love this fantastic video footage from 1923 showing Margaret Morris Merry Mermaids, showing dancers at Harlech beach performing mermaid inspired movement, courtesy of the British Film Institute.
Artist Donald Bain’s painting ‘Celtic Ballet: Forsaken Mermaid’ can be viewed on the National Galleries Scotland website.
The Celtic Ballet and its history feature in this opinion piece from ‘The National’ newspaper.
There is some fascinating reading around Erik Chisholm and his career to be found on the Erik Chisholm Trust website.

We Are Still Here!

Posted on July 10, 2020 by emacgillivray

We are delighted to announce that thanks to generous support from the Wellcome Research Resource Fund, our Body Language archives project will now run until January 2021.

It seemed a very different world when we began our Wellcome Research Resource-funded ‘Body Language’ project back in September 2017. The aim of our project is to catalogue, preserve and make available three significant collections relating to movement, dance, gymnastics and physical education in Scotland and beyond. The collections include the Margaret Morris Archives, the records of Dunfermline College of Physical Education and the records of Scottish Gymnastics. You can read more about the project and collections on our ‘About’ page. The project was originally due to complete in July 2020 – but we are still here, and I am very pleased to report that we are not going anywhere soon. Thanks to a generous grant supplement and project extension from our project funder, our ‘Body Language’ project will now run until January 2021.

Image showing the Margaret Morris Collection in situ at the Fergusson Gallery, Perth

We miss discovering daily delights in the archive – the Margaret Morris Collection in situ at the Fergusson Gallery, Perth

In February 2020, my main focus was centred around completing the cataloguing of the Margaret Morris collection. The cataloguing, conservation and preservation of both the Dunfermline College of Physical Education and Scottish Gymnastics collections were largely complete. I was working on final edits for those two collections, alongside the work on the Margaret Morris collection. The work required a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between boxes, creating the last of hundreds of box-lists, crafting and implementing a new intellectual arrangement for the Margaret Morris collection, and numbering the physical collections. I was also working with colleagues from our Digital Imaging Unit on the digitisation element of our project and with colleagues from our Library Digital Development team, developing the technical infrastructure for our new project website. The website will host the collections catalogues and provide contextual information for public engagement and research based around the collections.

By the middle of March 2020, Europe had been identified as the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic and it was becoming increasingly evident that we may have to move to home working at very short notice. With the prospect of no physical access to the collections for an indefinite period, I began to capture as much information as possible about the remaining uncatalogued material. I hastily created box-lists and took photographs of the physical layout and arrangement of collections, to act as a memory aid and to allow me to continue project work from home.

View from our project archivist’s home office

I have been working from home since 18 March 2020. While I have been able to continue work on many of the outstanding project tasks at home, I and others on the team have been unable to physically access collections to complete essential cataloguing and digitisation work. And like so many people, our team are also facing some of the many and varied challenges that have come along with lock-down, such as increased childcare commitments, home schooling, and caring commitments.

We are delighted therefore (and a little relieved) that Wellcome have offered to supplement our original grant and to extend the project end date by 6 months. This will help enormously to mitigate some of the impact and challenges that we have faced, and continue to face, in light of the current global health crisis. We hope to be able to return to working with the physical collections before the end of the project – we miss them (and our colleagues).

The extension provides an opportunity, over the coming months, for us to share more here; about the collections, our work, and to highlight some of the interesting discoveries that we have made. We’ll be posting something every week, (with perhaps a guest post or two). Please join us on our journey as we work our way through the concluding stages of our project.

I am really happy to be able to work with these fantastic collections for a little longer. Thank you Wellcome!

Elaine MacGillivray
Project Archivist

Body Language: movement, dance and physical education in Scotland, 1890-1990

A Wellcome Trust Research Resources project

Monthly Archives: July 2020

The Humble Spider – A Measure of Moral Character in Physical Education

The Forsaken Mermaid

We Are Still Here!