Abigail Chapman

Intern at St Cecilia’s Hall

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/library-museum-gallery/museums-and-galleries/musical-instrument-museums

For the past three months, I have been spending two days a week researching the social history of St Cecilia’s Hall and the Edinburgh Musical Society, who commissioned the building in the early eighteenth century. My first task was to find concert listings for St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh newspapers, to ascertain the repertoire of the society between 1763 and 1798. That involved hours of reading the Caledonian Mercury and the Edinburgh Evening Courant, and a few days at the Central Library reading the EMS Minutes. Mari, whom I have been interning alongside, has worked on organising the Langwill-Waterhouse Archive, consisting of dozens of boxes of uncatalogued material.

What has made this internship most special, though, is all the odd jobs that I have ended up doing, whether that be sorting through the odd folder of the Langwill-Waterhouse Archive; conserving tarnished bagpipes for an upcoming symposium; or learning about the proper care of instruments as part of the relocation of EUCHMI’s collection to improved storage facilities. In the process, I have learned about instruments I never knew existed, gained archive management and conservation experience, and polished up my research skills into the bargain.