On the 16th of December, 1653, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.
Oliver Cromwell, eh? Oliver Cromwell inspires various emotions, both good and bad. The Irish certainly do not love him. The Scots are probably unequivocal in their distaste and the English are split down Parliamentarian and Royalist lines, even to this day you could say. He was a Puritan and a Roundhead and in the days before ur-tribalism morphed into urban gang rivalry, he and his mates in the New Model Army were the first skinheads. Cromwell is said to have been the only invader of Scotland to conquer the whole country; the mainland anyway; so Old Ironsides did something that neither the Romans nor Edward Longshanks managed to do.
The Royalist Rising of 1650 to 1653 took place in Scotland between Scots ‘loyal’ to King Charles II against English parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell. The events of that period were part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and it was a time when men thought nothing of splitting religious hairs with cannonballs. The nine years long English Civil Wars, an historical misnomer if one there ever was, since most of the carnage in was in fact suffered by Ireland and Scotland rather than England, had just come to an end. The Battle of Naseby had recently taken place as had Oliver Cromwell’s subsequent execution of King Charles I in January, 1649. James Graham, the Marquess of Montrose, had been defeated at the Battle of Carbisdale, in April, 1650, and executed in the May, following which, Charles Stuart had reached Scotland in the June and given way to the demands of the Covenanters, making a number of humiliating concessions in exchange for a Crown. Charles had agreed to impose Presbyterianism throughout the Three Kingdoms, when he regained the throne, but that was easier said than done.
Cromwell’s army had dirtied its hands in Ireland during 1649-50 and fresh from having sent every Catholic in Ireland to Hell or Connacht, an army of about 16,000 veteran butchers arrived in Scotland in July, 1650, with Irish curses ringing in their ears. Thankfully, the ‘Curse of Cromwell’ didn’t have the same affect during his time in Scotland. The most powerful Scotsman of the day, the Duke of Argyll, maintained his equivocal position, however, the majority of Scots showed no sign of accepting Cromwell’s English domination. Oliver’s army fared badly at first when it was opposed by a Scottish army of about 20,000 under the command of veteran General David Leslie. Leslie’s army carried out a scorched earth policy in East Lothian, in order to deny the English food supplies, and established a strong position near Edinburgh by August 1650.
Denied Edinburgh, Cromwell’s Roundhead army turned back south as it was fast running out of supplies and thousands of its men went down with disease and were unable to fight. The Lord Protector might have thought his Puritan God had also turned – perhaps not; fanatics don’t have doubts. Leslie went off in pursuit and the outcome of that chase was the fateful Battle of Dunbar, which took place on the 3rd of September, 1650. The Scots lost and with its defeat at Dunbar, the Scottish army squandered an incredible opportunity to defeat Cromwell and change the course of British history. It was Scotland’s best and last realistic chance to chart its own political and religious destiny and it was wasted by a committee of Presbyterian ministers, blinkered by religious fanaticism. Fanatics there were on both sides as Cromwell pronounced the victory as “A high act of the Lord’s Providence to us [and] one of the most signal mercies God hath done for England and His people”.
After Dunbar, Leslie prudently fled with the skeleton of his army to defend Stirling, the gateway to the Highlands. He left Edinburgh undefended and open to a triumphant Oliver Cromwell, whose victorious New Model Army took possession of the City on the 7th of September, 1650. The Scottish garrison in Edinburgh Castle above the City held out until December and at Scone, on the 1st of January, 1651, the Scottish Parliament had the effrontery to recognise Charles II as its King. Later in 1651, Scottish Royalist army, made up of Engagers and Covenanters, previously enemies of Charles, who were now his supporters, because he’d signed the National Covenant, marched into England. That was really a desperate attempt to invade England and capture London while Cromwell was still in Scotland. Cromwell promptly followed them south and caught them at Worcester, where a battle occurred on the 3rd of September. The Scots’ army was defeated at Worcester and from there, Charles made his famous escape, spending the day of the 6th hiding in the ‘Royal Oak’ at Boscobel House. He subsequently fled to exile in France and the Netherlands, where he remained until 1660.
In the final stages of the Scottish campaign, Cromwell’s men, under George Monck, sacked the town of Dundee, killing up to 2,000 of its population of 12,000 and destroying sixty ships in its harbour. Later, on the 28th of October, the English Parliament passed a declaration known as the ‘Tender of Union’. That stated that Scotland would cease to have an independent parliament and would join England in its emerging Commonwealth republic. It was proclaimed in Scotland on the 4th of February, 1652, and regularised the ‘de facto’ annexation of Scotland by England. Under the terms of the ‘Tender’, the Scots were given thirty seats in a united Parliament in London, with General Monck appointed as the Military Governor of Scotland. Scotland, which had twice attempted to impose its Presbyterian will on both Royalist and Puritan England, found itself reduced to the status of an English province under martial law. A number of Royalist strongholds in Scotland continued to hold out against Cromwell, namely the Bass Rock, Dumbarton Castle, Dunnottar Castle, and Brodick Castle. Dunnottar Castle was the last Royalist stronghold to capitulate, on the 24th of May, 1652, but Cromwell wasn’t able to lay his hands on Scotland’s Regalia, which were spirited away from the Castle.
After the dissolution of the Rump Parliament and the Barebones Parliament, Oliver Cromwell was sworn in as Lord Protector on the 16th of December, 1653, with a ceremony in which he wore plain black clothing, rather than any monarchical regalia. From then on, Cromwell signed his name ‘Oliver P’ – Oliver Protector – in a monarchical style and it became the norm for others to address him as ‘Your highness’.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Dr. Robert McIntyre
Dr. Robert McIntyre, the first Scottish National Party Member of the Westminster Parliament, was born on the 15th of December, 1913.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) won its first electoral victory on the 12th of April, 1945, when Dr. Robert McIntyre won the Motherwell and Wishaw by-election for the SNP in a straight fight against the Labour Party, by a majority of 617 votes. McIntyre took 51.4% of the vote on that occasion, but his victory was short lived as he lost the seat at the next General Election; three months later. It was twenty-one years before the SNP’s next electoral breakthrough came, in November, 1967, with Winnie Ewing’s famous victory at the Hamilton by-election.
The SNP has had its ‘bravehearts’ – those who toiled for Scotland in the wilderness years and sacrificed their energies for the cause. One of those was surely Dr. Robert McIntyre, known to the Party as ‘Doc Mac’ and regarded as the ‘father’ of the SNP. Not only did he have the distinction of being the Party’s first MP, McIntyre was its Chairman between 1948 and 1956 and President from 1958 until 1980. During the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, McIntyre built up the SNP throughout Scotland, standing as a parliamentary candidate in every General Election from 1945 to 1974 and in a by-election in 1971; a grand total of thirteen times. As Gordon Wilson wrote for the preface to Dick Douglas’ biography of McIntyre, “He laid the ground for the expansion that was to come. Lesser men would have given up long before since it is particularly difficult for some-one who has made a major unprecedented break-through only to have his hopes dashed”. McIntyre was instrumental in encouraging others, such as Winifred Ewing, to stand as candidates. Winnie’s first political speech was given in McIntyre’s constituency and this led to her being put forward for the Hamilton by-election she won in 1967.
McIntyre later became Provost of Stirling and was admired by thousands of Scots for his struggle for independence. Long before that, his first appearance in the Parliament at Westminster caused quite a stir and led to the press at the time wrongly accusing him of refusing to take the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ to the Crown. In the House of Commons on the 17th of April, 1945, McIntyre was called to the ‘Table’ by Mr. Speaker, D. Clifton Brown, along with other “Members desiring to take their seats”. The record in Hansard shows that McIntyre, Member for the County of Lanark (Motherwell Division), hadn’t been “introduced”. The problem was, that coming from a Party of one, he didn’t have any colleagues to do the honour. At the time, the satirical magazine ‘Punch’ carried a cartoon of him brandishing a sword and the caption, “McIntirely Alone”. In reality, the situation was more absurd than amusing and what happened next reflected badly on the ‘Mother of Parliaments’. The Speaker called the attention of the House to its resolution of the 23rd of February, 1688 – yes, 1688 – and pointed to an “ancient Order and Custom” whereby new Members had to be “introduced to the Table” so that they “may be better known to the House”. Three hundred years before McIntyre’s debut, the resolution was designed to prevent impostors taking a seat, but in 1945, custom and practice were bizarrely intent on denying a seat on a chair to the lone SNP Member.
After some protest, a full scale debate ensued. On the one hand, there was Winston Churchill putting aside the important matter of winning the War to use his not insubstantial oratorical gifts to advise the House of Commons to keep to its ancient traditions. On the other, there was Aneurin Bevan eloquently stating that any “regulation, custom or usage of this House” should not be set against “the [constitutional] rights of the citizens of this country to be represented here by any person whomsoever they select”. Arthur Woodburn, the Labour MP for Clackmannan, suggested that the rule should be put aside in the case “of a unique party, a person who had nobody associated with him”. A vote to waive the rule went against McIntyre by 273 votes to 74, with both Attlee and Churchill on the “nay” side.
McIntyre later noted in the ‘Evening Citizen’ that 1688 was well before the ‘Treaty of Union’ and he also suggested that “If resolutions of the old English Parliament are binding to the Parliament now at Westminster, then it would appear that the present Parliament is merely a continuation of the old English Parliament and is not a united Parliament based on the Treaty”. It also came to light that a variation had been sanctioned once before, on the 18th of February, 1875, when Dr Edward Vaughan Kenealy sought to be introduced as the MP for Stoke-on-Trent without sponsors. Unlike Churchill, the then Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, ensured the dispensation was carried without a division. After the vote, McIntyre conceded, suggesting that he was now “sufficiently kenspeckled” and “under protest”, accepted the ‘sponsorship’ and introduction by fellow Scots, the Rev. James Barr and Alexander Sloan.
Robert Douglas McIntyre was born in Dalziel, in Lanarkshire, on the 15th of December, 1913. He was educated at Hamilton Academy, Daniel Stewart’s College, and the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, qualified as a doctor and was chairman of the University Labour Party. He graduated in 1938 and worked as a general practitioner in England and Scotland, and also worked at Stirling Royal Infirmary. He later developed an interest in the area of public health and studied at the University of Glasgow to gain a Diploma in Public Health. McIntyre joined the SNP in the 1930s, when it was headed by John MacCormick. When his successor, Professor Douglas Young, who served as leader from 1942 to 1945, was first imprisoned for refusing to be conscripted during the Second World War, McIntyre, then Secretary of the SNP, organised a procession, complete with bagpipes, to serenade Young at the prison gates on Sundays. After he lost his Westminster seat in 1945, McIntyre returned to his medical practice. He later worked in Stirling Royal Infirmary, specializing in the treatment of tuberculosis, and he went on to become a consultant chest physician for Stirlingshire and Clackmannan from 1951 to 1979. Dr. R. D. McIntyre died in Stirling, ironically, of a chest complaint, on the 2nd of February, 1998.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) won its first electoral victory on the 12th of April, 1945, when Dr. Robert McIntyre won the Motherwell and Wishaw by-election for the SNP in a straight fight against the Labour Party, by a majority of 617 votes. McIntyre took 51.4% of the vote on that occasion, but his victory was short lived as he lost the seat at the next General Election; three months later. It was twenty-one years before the SNP’s next electoral breakthrough came, in November, 1967, with Winnie Ewing’s famous victory at the Hamilton by-election.
The SNP has had its ‘bravehearts’ – those who toiled for Scotland in the wilderness years and sacrificed their energies for the cause. One of those was surely Dr. Robert McIntyre, known to the Party as ‘Doc Mac’ and regarded as the ‘father’ of the SNP. Not only did he have the distinction of being the Party’s first MP, McIntyre was its Chairman between 1948 and 1956 and President from 1958 until 1980. During the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, McIntyre built up the SNP throughout Scotland, standing as a parliamentary candidate in every General Election from 1945 to 1974 and in a by-election in 1971; a grand total of thirteen times. As Gordon Wilson wrote for the preface to Dick Douglas’ biography of McIntyre, “He laid the ground for the expansion that was to come. Lesser men would have given up long before since it is particularly difficult for some-one who has made a major unprecedented break-through only to have his hopes dashed”. McIntyre was instrumental in encouraging others, such as Winifred Ewing, to stand as candidates. Winnie’s first political speech was given in McIntyre’s constituency and this led to her being put forward for the Hamilton by-election she won in 1967.
McIntyre later became Provost of Stirling and was admired by thousands of Scots for his struggle for independence. Long before that, his first appearance in the Parliament at Westminster caused quite a stir and led to the press at the time wrongly accusing him of refusing to take the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ to the Crown. In the House of Commons on the 17th of April, 1945, McIntyre was called to the ‘Table’ by Mr. Speaker, D. Clifton Brown, along with other “Members desiring to take their seats”. The record in Hansard shows that McIntyre, Member for the County of Lanark (Motherwell Division), hadn’t been “introduced”. The problem was, that coming from a Party of one, he didn’t have any colleagues to do the honour. At the time, the satirical magazine ‘Punch’ carried a cartoon of him brandishing a sword and the caption, “McIntirely Alone”. In reality, the situation was more absurd than amusing and what happened next reflected badly on the ‘Mother of Parliaments’. The Speaker called the attention of the House to its resolution of the 23rd of February, 1688 – yes, 1688 – and pointed to an “ancient Order and Custom” whereby new Members had to be “introduced to the Table” so that they “may be better known to the House”. Three hundred years before McIntyre’s debut, the resolution was designed to prevent impostors taking a seat, but in 1945, custom and practice were bizarrely intent on denying a seat on a chair to the lone SNP Member.
After some protest, a full scale debate ensued. On the one hand, there was Winston Churchill putting aside the important matter of winning the War to use his not insubstantial oratorical gifts to advise the House of Commons to keep to its ancient traditions. On the other, there was Aneurin Bevan eloquently stating that any “regulation, custom or usage of this House” should not be set against “the [constitutional] rights of the citizens of this country to be represented here by any person whomsoever they select”. Arthur Woodburn, the Labour MP for Clackmannan, suggested that the rule should be put aside in the case “of a unique party, a person who had nobody associated with him”. A vote to waive the rule went against McIntyre by 273 votes to 74, with both Attlee and Churchill on the “nay” side.
McIntyre later noted in the ‘Evening Citizen’ that 1688 was well before the ‘Treaty of Union’ and he also suggested that “If resolutions of the old English Parliament are binding to the Parliament now at Westminster, then it would appear that the present Parliament is merely a continuation of the old English Parliament and is not a united Parliament based on the Treaty”. It also came to light that a variation had been sanctioned once before, on the 18th of February, 1875, when Dr Edward Vaughan Kenealy sought to be introduced as the MP for Stoke-on-Trent without sponsors. Unlike Churchill, the then Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, ensured the dispensation was carried without a division. After the vote, McIntyre conceded, suggesting that he was now “sufficiently kenspeckled” and “under protest”, accepted the ‘sponsorship’ and introduction by fellow Scots, the Rev. James Barr and Alexander Sloan.
Robert Douglas McIntyre was born in Dalziel, in Lanarkshire, on the 15th of December, 1913. He was educated at Hamilton Academy, Daniel Stewart’s College, and the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, qualified as a doctor and was chairman of the University Labour Party. He graduated in 1938 and worked as a general practitioner in England and Scotland, and also worked at Stirling Royal Infirmary. He later developed an interest in the area of public health and studied at the University of Glasgow to gain a Diploma in Public Health. McIntyre joined the SNP in the 1930s, when it was headed by John MacCormick. When his successor, Professor Douglas Young, who served as leader from 1942 to 1945, was first imprisoned for refusing to be conscripted during the Second World War, McIntyre, then Secretary of the SNP, organised a procession, complete with bagpipes, to serenade Young at the prison gates on Sundays. After he lost his Westminster seat in 1945, McIntyre returned to his medical practice. He later worked in Stirling Royal Infirmary, specializing in the treatment of tuberculosis, and he went on to become a consultant chest physician for Stirlingshire and Clackmannan from 1951 to 1979. Dr. R. D. McIntyre died in Stirling, ironically, of a chest complaint, on the 2nd of February, 1998.
Will Fyffe
Will Fyffe, actor, singer and comedian, died on the 14th of December, 1947.
Will Fyffe will be associated with Glasgow forever, because he has been immortalised for his rendition of the song ‘I belong to Glasgow’. The song, which is memorable for its lyrics as well as Fyffe’s own renditions, was his own composition. And the eponymous Glasgow anthem, sung many a night in the pubs and on the streets of Scotland’s second city, is synonymous with Will Fyffe even though he was born seventy miles away in Dundee by the silvery Tay. The song has been covered by the likes of Danny Kaye, Eartha Kitt, Dame Gracie Fields, Andy Stewart and Kirk Douglas, for goodness sake. Its lyrics celebrate the working man and describe one who has had too much to drink, which is exactly how Fyffe appeared so often in his characterisations, staggering about the stage with a muffler at his neck and bottle in his pocket. With those lyrics, Fyffe was having a go at the anti-drink campaigners, prevalent in the day, but it was fondly satirical; jist a wee bit o’ fun. Fyffe wrote and recorded over thirty popular songs, including ‘She was the Belle of the Ball’; each one a witty masterpiece with an engaging melody and delivered with his own unique style.
Will Fyffe was a major star of the 1930s and 1940s; an entertainer who appeared on stage, screen and vinyl as well as on radio and the sma’ screen. Fyffe even toured as a straight actor in productions of Shakespeare. His fame equalled that of his contemporary, Sir Harry Lauder, but Fyffe was also known for the breadth of his characterisations such as the Engineer, the Bridegroom in his 90s, and of course, the Glasgow working man. As a character actor, he was much in demand in Hollywood and Britain, and he starred and co-starred in twenty-three major films of his era, alongside the likes of John Laurie, Duncan MacRae, John Gielgud, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Margaret Lockwood and Charles Hawtrey. In ‘Owd Bob’, which was released as ‘To The Victor’ in America, Fyffe plays McAdam, a “likeable old curmudgeon” and the ‘New York Times’ described his performance at the time as fitting “snugly …under the heading, ‘great performances’”. Fyffe also played the music hall circuit, where he performed his sketches and sang his songs in an inimitable style, and he appeared in five Royal Variety performances.
Fyffe specialised in Scottish characters, and he had the ability to create and then seem to be that character on the stage. He carefully studied a variety of local worthies and of his many fine inventions, mention must be given to Dr. McGregor, the Gamekeeper, the Shepherd, the Railway Guard and one of his most popular characters, the village idiot, Daft Sandy. The drama critic, James Agate, one referred to Sandy as “a masterpiece of tragi-comedy”. On stage, Fyffe narrated the stories of a succession of comic characters in his unique style. After beginning a song, he’d sing a verse or two, then pause in the middle and utter a monologue providing additional detail to embellish the storyline. Fyffe was so popular in his day that the Empire Theatre in Glasgow once ran a ‘Will Fyffe’ competition. Dozens of hopefuls entered, to sing his famous composition about the city and Fyffe, being a bit of a joker off stage as well as on, also entered. Heavily disguised as himself, he came second!
The story of how ‘I belong to Glasgow’ came to be has long since entered folklore, but the gist of it is that late one night at Glasgow Central Station, Fyffe met his greatest inspiration. Albert Mackie wrote in ‘The Scotch Comedians’ that Fyffe’s drunk was “genial and demonstrative” and was spouting off “about Karl Marx and John Barleycorn with equal enthusiasm”. Fyffe asked him, “Do you belong to Glasgow?” and the drunk replied – you can almost feel his concentration in uttering the city’s name – “At the moam’nt, at the moam’nt, Glasgow b’longs tae me”. The story also goes that Fyffe offered the song to Lauder, which he is said to have refused on the grounds that it glorified drink. There is a famous rejoinder attributed to Lauder after it was pointed out that his song, ‘Just a Wee Deoch and Doris’ was also about the drink. Sir Harry retorted, “It was just a wee deoch and doris”. However, the likelihood of Will Fyffe offering Lauder a song he’d written for himself is slim, as Ian Jack of ‘The Guardian’ has suggested.
In comparison to Lauder, Fyffe was a far more subtle and wittier impersonator. Lauder’s ‘Scotchman’ was a parody of the denizens of yore, an exaggerated version of ‘scottishness’ that was largely responsible for how Scots were seen abroad, whereas Fyffe was alive to the present in all its subtle variety. Fyffe first introduced his famous anthem at the Glasgow Pavilion in 1921 and apart from London, and Aberdeen’s ‘Northern Lights’, citizenship of no other British city has been so celebrated around the world. Even the Taggart theme, ‘No Mean City’, sung by Glasgow’s Maggie Bell, must take second place to Fyffe’s possessive lyric. Here’s a lyric from Fyffe’s ‘The Wedding of Marie MacLean’ in the Scottish universal phonetic language (SUPL):
“Oe! Sich a niys wadin yi nivir did see
Nae wundir that ah hud a teer in ma ee
Ah wiz greetin bikoz thi briydgroom wiznae mee
Oen thei nicht o thi wadin o Maerae MacLaen”
William Fyffe was born on the 16th of February, 1885, in a tenement at number 36 Broughty Ferry Road in Dundee. His dad ran a ‘Penny Geggy’ and Will’s formative years were spent gaining valuable experience as a character actor, and touring around Scotland in productions of Shakespeare. The name ‘geggy’ derives from a Glasgow word; the verb to ‘gag’ and it came to describe a makeshift tour of small towns, undertaken by actors who were between seasons at the major Scottish theatres. The ‘Penny Geggy’ developed from the booth theatres that crowded round Glasgow Green each July during the Glasgow Fair, the annual, West of Scotland holiday for industrial and agricultural workers. The ‘Geggies’ were constructed of canvas and wood, like circus tents and were heated by charcoal braziers. They were erected and dismantled in each new town visited, and seated an audience of around four hundred. They were also vulnerable to the elements and Fyffe once recalled his father’s ‘Geggy’ being blown into the river at Perth, with Will on the roof. To Will’s consternation the company seemed more interested in saving the ‘Geggy’ than his rescue.
In his twenties, Fyffe joined William Haggar Junior’s ‘Castle Theatre’ company, touring the South Wales Valleys from its base in Abergavenny and Fyffe, together with his wife, featured in an advert for the theatre in the 1911 ‘Portable Times’. Fyffe later switched to comedy and music hall, and became a headline act throughout Scotland. His screen debut was in 1914 when William Haggar Senior, a pioneer silent film producer, made an epic fifty-minute version of the classic Welsh Tale, ‘The Maid of Cefn Ydfa’. William Fyffe died in a local cottage hospital on the 14th of December, 1947, from injuries sustained in an accidental fall from a hotel window in St. Andrews, after being stricken with dizziness following an operation on his right ear. He was buried in the Western Necropolis, in his adopted city of Glasgow, on the 17th of December.
Will Fyffe will be associated with Glasgow forever, because he has been immortalised for his rendition of the song ‘I belong to Glasgow’. The song, which is memorable for its lyrics as well as Fyffe’s own renditions, was his own composition. And the eponymous Glasgow anthem, sung many a night in the pubs and on the streets of Scotland’s second city, is synonymous with Will Fyffe even though he was born seventy miles away in Dundee by the silvery Tay. The song has been covered by the likes of Danny Kaye, Eartha Kitt, Dame Gracie Fields, Andy Stewart and Kirk Douglas, for goodness sake. Its lyrics celebrate the working man and describe one who has had too much to drink, which is exactly how Fyffe appeared so often in his characterisations, staggering about the stage with a muffler at his neck and bottle in his pocket. With those lyrics, Fyffe was having a go at the anti-drink campaigners, prevalent in the day, but it was fondly satirical; jist a wee bit o’ fun. Fyffe wrote and recorded over thirty popular songs, including ‘She was the Belle of the Ball’; each one a witty masterpiece with an engaging melody and delivered with his own unique style.
Will Fyffe was a major star of the 1930s and 1940s; an entertainer who appeared on stage, screen and vinyl as well as on radio and the sma’ screen. Fyffe even toured as a straight actor in productions of Shakespeare. His fame equalled that of his contemporary, Sir Harry Lauder, but Fyffe was also known for the breadth of his characterisations such as the Engineer, the Bridegroom in his 90s, and of course, the Glasgow working man. As a character actor, he was much in demand in Hollywood and Britain, and he starred and co-starred in twenty-three major films of his era, alongside the likes of John Laurie, Duncan MacRae, John Gielgud, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Margaret Lockwood and Charles Hawtrey. In ‘Owd Bob’, which was released as ‘To The Victor’ in America, Fyffe plays McAdam, a “likeable old curmudgeon” and the ‘New York Times’ described his performance at the time as fitting “snugly …under the heading, ‘great performances’”. Fyffe also played the music hall circuit, where he performed his sketches and sang his songs in an inimitable style, and he appeared in five Royal Variety performances.
Fyffe specialised in Scottish characters, and he had the ability to create and then seem to be that character on the stage. He carefully studied a variety of local worthies and of his many fine inventions, mention must be given to Dr. McGregor, the Gamekeeper, the Shepherd, the Railway Guard and one of his most popular characters, the village idiot, Daft Sandy. The drama critic, James Agate, one referred to Sandy as “a masterpiece of tragi-comedy”. On stage, Fyffe narrated the stories of a succession of comic characters in his unique style. After beginning a song, he’d sing a verse or two, then pause in the middle and utter a monologue providing additional detail to embellish the storyline. Fyffe was so popular in his day that the Empire Theatre in Glasgow once ran a ‘Will Fyffe’ competition. Dozens of hopefuls entered, to sing his famous composition about the city and Fyffe, being a bit of a joker off stage as well as on, also entered. Heavily disguised as himself, he came second!
The story of how ‘I belong to Glasgow’ came to be has long since entered folklore, but the gist of it is that late one night at Glasgow Central Station, Fyffe met his greatest inspiration. Albert Mackie wrote in ‘The Scotch Comedians’ that Fyffe’s drunk was “genial and demonstrative” and was spouting off “about Karl Marx and John Barleycorn with equal enthusiasm”. Fyffe asked him, “Do you belong to Glasgow?” and the drunk replied – you can almost feel his concentration in uttering the city’s name – “At the moam’nt, at the moam’nt, Glasgow b’longs tae me”. The story also goes that Fyffe offered the song to Lauder, which he is said to have refused on the grounds that it glorified drink. There is a famous rejoinder attributed to Lauder after it was pointed out that his song, ‘Just a Wee Deoch and Doris’ was also about the drink. Sir Harry retorted, “It was just a wee deoch and doris”. However, the likelihood of Will Fyffe offering Lauder a song he’d written for himself is slim, as Ian Jack of ‘The Guardian’ has suggested.
In comparison to Lauder, Fyffe was a far more subtle and wittier impersonator. Lauder’s ‘Scotchman’ was a parody of the denizens of yore, an exaggerated version of ‘scottishness’ that was largely responsible for how Scots were seen abroad, whereas Fyffe was alive to the present in all its subtle variety. Fyffe first introduced his famous anthem at the Glasgow Pavilion in 1921 and apart from London, and Aberdeen’s ‘Northern Lights’, citizenship of no other British city has been so celebrated around the world. Even the Taggart theme, ‘No Mean City’, sung by Glasgow’s Maggie Bell, must take second place to Fyffe’s possessive lyric. Here’s a lyric from Fyffe’s ‘The Wedding of Marie MacLean’ in the Scottish universal phonetic language (SUPL):
“Oe! Sich a niys wadin yi nivir did see
Nae wundir that ah hud a teer in ma ee
Ah wiz greetin bikoz thi briydgroom wiznae mee
Oen thei nicht o thi wadin o Maerae MacLaen”
William Fyffe was born on the 16th of February, 1885, in a tenement at number 36 Broughty Ferry Road in Dundee. His dad ran a ‘Penny Geggy’ and Will’s formative years were spent gaining valuable experience as a character actor, and touring around Scotland in productions of Shakespeare. The name ‘geggy’ derives from a Glasgow word; the verb to ‘gag’ and it came to describe a makeshift tour of small towns, undertaken by actors who were between seasons at the major Scottish theatres. The ‘Penny Geggy’ developed from the booth theatres that crowded round Glasgow Green each July during the Glasgow Fair, the annual, West of Scotland holiday for industrial and agricultural workers. The ‘Geggies’ were constructed of canvas and wood, like circus tents and were heated by charcoal braziers. They were erected and dismantled in each new town visited, and seated an audience of around four hundred. They were also vulnerable to the elements and Fyffe once recalled his father’s ‘Geggy’ being blown into the river at Perth, with Will on the roof. To Will’s consternation the company seemed more interested in saving the ‘Geggy’ than his rescue.
In his twenties, Fyffe joined William Haggar Junior’s ‘Castle Theatre’ company, touring the South Wales Valleys from its base in Abergavenny and Fyffe, together with his wife, featured in an advert for the theatre in the 1911 ‘Portable Times’. Fyffe later switched to comedy and music hall, and became a headline act throughout Scotland. His screen debut was in 1914 when William Haggar Senior, a pioneer silent film producer, made an epic fifty-minute version of the classic Welsh Tale, ‘The Maid of Cefn Ydfa’. William Fyffe died in a local cottage hospital on the 14th of December, 1947, from injuries sustained in an accidental fall from a hotel window in St. Andrews, after being stricken with dizziness following an operation on his right ear. He was buried in the Western Necropolis, in his adopted city of Glasgow, on the 17th of December.
Sunday, 12 December 2010
William Drummond of Hawthornden
William Drummond of Hawthornden, poet, pamphleteer and Laird, was born on the 13th of December, 1585.
William Drummond was more frequently called by the name of the place where he lived than by his own name so he appears in history as ‘Drummond of Hawthornden’. Between the era of Drummond and his contemporaries, such as William Alexander of Menstrie, and that of Alan Ramsay in the Enlightenment Century, there was a bit of a hiatus in Scottish poetry and literary culture. In fact, it was more of a crisis as it lasted a century or so, from the Union of the Crowns in 1603, until the beginning of the 18th Century. Drummond of Hawthornden was the last significant figure in 17th Century Scottish poetry and the cause of the prolonged interval was his Grace, James VI, himsel’ a wee bit poet. When James became James VI & I, the Scottish court, including Hawthornden, flitted to London and oor Wullie became one of the first notable Scots poets to write exclusively in English. You can easily excuse him if you believe he had no choice but to write for an English audience; less so if you see him as a sycophantic toady. You might lean towards the latter if you also believe the stories that he died of ‘grief’ at the execution of Charles I in 1649. Drummond revealed his own leanings – he was a fervent Royalist – in his last sonnet, published posthumously, which reflected on his King’s death.
Actually, Drummond was a man of principle, but he was a realist as well as a Royalist. In those troubled times after the ascension of Charles I, it paid not to stick your head too far above the parapet. As he said himself, “Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace ...on much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety.” Drummond was involved in speechifying and versifying for Charles’ triumphal procession through Edinburgh during his solitary visit to Scotland in 1633. And as he strongly preferred Episcopacy to the Presbyterianism of the Covenanters, he supported the King’s general policy, but gie him his due, he ‘doth protest’ against Charlie’s enforcers’ methods. Nevertheless, in 1639, Drummond was a reluctant signatory of the National Covenant; for his self-protection. He didn’t lie down quietly, though, and in 1643, he published a political pamphlet subtitled ‘a Defence of a Petition tendered to the Lords of the Council of Scotland by certain Noblemen and Gentlemen’, which was critical of the Covenanters and supported Scottish Royalists who wished to espouse the King’s cause against the English Parliament. Good for him, it was an invective on the intolerance of the then dominant Presbyterian clergy.
Drummond was called ‘the Scottish Petrarch’ after Francesco Petrarca, the 14th Century Italian scholar and poet whose sonnets became a model for lyrical poetry. Hawthornden’s sonnets have been described as “of genuine passion” and “far above most of the contemporary Petrarcan imitations”. Drummond was also influenced by Spenser as in his first poem, from 1613, an elegy on the death of Prince Henry, the heir of James VI. It was called ‘Teares on the Death of Meliades’ by William Drummond of Hawthornedenne. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death, he published melancholy poems and sonnets, many of which were related to Mary Cunningham of Barns, his fiancé who had died the previous year. His work had no significant Scottish characteristics, rather an English and Italian influence; some poems from the latter of which he translated. Next up, in 1617, was a poem written in heroic couplets to mark the visit of James VI & I to Scotland; it was called ‘Forth Feasting: A Panegyricke to the King's Most Excellent Majestie’. You can see why he was popular at Court.
In 1623, he wrote perhaps his most well known prose, ‘The Cypress Grove’, a philosophic essay on the contemplation of mortality with an “extraordinary command of musical English”. “This globe of the earth,” wrote Drummond, “which seemeth huge to us, in respect of the universe, and compared with that wide pavilion of heaven, is less than little, of no sensible quantity, and but as a point.” Later, he was moved to write a ‘History of Scotland during the Reigns of the Five Jameses’, chiefly due to his resentment of the assertion that Robert III, husband of Annabella Drummond, was illegitimate. His interest in Scottish history stemmed solely from his investigation of his family’s genealogy and the result, which was published in 1655, after his death, is noted more for its excellent literary style than its historical accuracy.
William Drummond was born at Hawthornden Castle, near Roslin in mid-Lothian, on the 13th of December, 1585. He was educated at the Royal High School and then the ‘Tounis College’ (the recently founded University of Edinburgh) from where he graduated in 1605, before going to France to study law, which he did at Bourges and then Paris. He came back home in 1609, to become Laird of Hawthornden on the death of his father. Finding himself his own master, Drummond abandoned law for the muses, according to his 1711 biographer because “the delicacy of his wit always ran …on the fame and softness of poetry”. The sudden death of his Mary contributed to his isolation and application to the study of European poetry and literature. He amassed a wonderful collection of books, about a third of which he gifted to the ‘Tounis College’ between 1626 and 1636 and which now form the finest of treasures in the library of the University of Edinburgh. The collection spans literature, history, geography, philosophy, theology, science, medicine and law, and contains many first editions from Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, Drayton and Sir Philip Sidney.
Curiously for a man of letters, Drummond appears as the holder of a patent for the construction of military machines, entitled ‘Litera Magistri Gulielmi Drummond de Fabrica Machinarum Militarium, Anno 1627’. On the 29th of September 1626 he received sixteen patents for, amongst other things, ‘Glasses of Archimedes’, which were ship’s fire bombs, and an early machine gun. It seems to have been a forerunner of the Gatling gun as it had “a number of musket barrels fastened together in such a manner as to allow one man to take the place of a hundred musketeers in battle”. There is no evidence that the man who carefully avoided any part in the Bishop’s War actually produced or manufactured any of those devices. William Drummond of Hawthornden died peacefully, on the 4th of December, 1649, and was buried at Lasswade.
William Drummond was more frequently called by the name of the place where he lived than by his own name so he appears in history as ‘Drummond of Hawthornden’. Between the era of Drummond and his contemporaries, such as William Alexander of Menstrie, and that of Alan Ramsay in the Enlightenment Century, there was a bit of a hiatus in Scottish poetry and literary culture. In fact, it was more of a crisis as it lasted a century or so, from the Union of the Crowns in 1603, until the beginning of the 18th Century. Drummond of Hawthornden was the last significant figure in 17th Century Scottish poetry and the cause of the prolonged interval was his Grace, James VI, himsel’ a wee bit poet. When James became James VI & I, the Scottish court, including Hawthornden, flitted to London and oor Wullie became one of the first notable Scots poets to write exclusively in English. You can easily excuse him if you believe he had no choice but to write for an English audience; less so if you see him as a sycophantic toady. You might lean towards the latter if you also believe the stories that he died of ‘grief’ at the execution of Charles I in 1649. Drummond revealed his own leanings – he was a fervent Royalist – in his last sonnet, published posthumously, which reflected on his King’s death.
Actually, Drummond was a man of principle, but he was a realist as well as a Royalist. In those troubled times after the ascension of Charles I, it paid not to stick your head too far above the parapet. As he said himself, “Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace ...on much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety.” Drummond was involved in speechifying and versifying for Charles’ triumphal procession through Edinburgh during his solitary visit to Scotland in 1633. And as he strongly preferred Episcopacy to the Presbyterianism of the Covenanters, he supported the King’s general policy, but gie him his due, he ‘doth protest’ against Charlie’s enforcers’ methods. Nevertheless, in 1639, Drummond was a reluctant signatory of the National Covenant; for his self-protection. He didn’t lie down quietly, though, and in 1643, he published a political pamphlet subtitled ‘a Defence of a Petition tendered to the Lords of the Council of Scotland by certain Noblemen and Gentlemen’, which was critical of the Covenanters and supported Scottish Royalists who wished to espouse the King’s cause against the English Parliament. Good for him, it was an invective on the intolerance of the then dominant Presbyterian clergy.
Drummond was called ‘the Scottish Petrarch’ after Francesco Petrarca, the 14th Century Italian scholar and poet whose sonnets became a model for lyrical poetry. Hawthornden’s sonnets have been described as “of genuine passion” and “far above most of the contemporary Petrarcan imitations”. Drummond was also influenced by Spenser as in his first poem, from 1613, an elegy on the death of Prince Henry, the heir of James VI. It was called ‘Teares on the Death of Meliades’ by William Drummond of Hawthornedenne. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death, he published melancholy poems and sonnets, many of which were related to Mary Cunningham of Barns, his fiancé who had died the previous year. His work had no significant Scottish characteristics, rather an English and Italian influence; some poems from the latter of which he translated. Next up, in 1617, was a poem written in heroic couplets to mark the visit of James VI & I to Scotland; it was called ‘Forth Feasting: A Panegyricke to the King's Most Excellent Majestie’. You can see why he was popular at Court.
In 1623, he wrote perhaps his most well known prose, ‘The Cypress Grove’, a philosophic essay on the contemplation of mortality with an “extraordinary command of musical English”. “This globe of the earth,” wrote Drummond, “which seemeth huge to us, in respect of the universe, and compared with that wide pavilion of heaven, is less than little, of no sensible quantity, and but as a point.” Later, he was moved to write a ‘History of Scotland during the Reigns of the Five Jameses’, chiefly due to his resentment of the assertion that Robert III, husband of Annabella Drummond, was illegitimate. His interest in Scottish history stemmed solely from his investigation of his family’s genealogy and the result, which was published in 1655, after his death, is noted more for its excellent literary style than its historical accuracy.
William Drummond was born at Hawthornden Castle, near Roslin in mid-Lothian, on the 13th of December, 1585. He was educated at the Royal High School and then the ‘Tounis College’ (the recently founded University of Edinburgh) from where he graduated in 1605, before going to France to study law, which he did at Bourges and then Paris. He came back home in 1609, to become Laird of Hawthornden on the death of his father. Finding himself his own master, Drummond abandoned law for the muses, according to his 1711 biographer because “the delicacy of his wit always ran …on the fame and softness of poetry”. The sudden death of his Mary contributed to his isolation and application to the study of European poetry and literature. He amassed a wonderful collection of books, about a third of which he gifted to the ‘Tounis College’ between 1626 and 1636 and which now form the finest of treasures in the library of the University of Edinburgh. The collection spans literature, history, geography, philosophy, theology, science, medicine and law, and contains many first editions from Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, Drayton and Sir Philip Sidney.
Curiously for a man of letters, Drummond appears as the holder of a patent for the construction of military machines, entitled ‘Litera Magistri Gulielmi Drummond de Fabrica Machinarum Militarium, Anno 1627’. On the 29th of September 1626 he received sixteen patents for, amongst other things, ‘Glasses of Archimedes’, which were ship’s fire bombs, and an early machine gun. It seems to have been a forerunner of the Gatling gun as it had “a number of musket barrels fastened together in such a manner as to allow one man to take the place of a hundred musketeers in battle”. There is no evidence that the man who carefully avoided any part in the Bishop’s War actually produced or manufactured any of those devices. William Drummond of Hawthornden died peacefully, on the 4th of December, 1649, and was buried at Lasswade.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Alexander Selkirk of Largo
Alexander Selkirk died on the 12th of December, 1721.
Most folks associate Robinson Crusoe with desert islands, goatskin clothing and Man Friday. Few recollect or are aware that Crusoe’s adventures continued long after he left his Caribbean island and included fighting off snow wolves in the forests of Russia. Perhaps fewer still know that Defoe’s character was inspired by a real life castaway – Alexander Selkirk from Largo, in Fife. Selkirk also inspired ‘Desert Island Discs’, but he wasn’t around to hear the radio programme launched. During the four years and four months he spent on ‘Más a Tierra’ island off the coast of Chile, Selkirk certainly found his way around, exploring the island and waiting for a ship to pass by. Ironically, in 1966, in search of tourist dollars, the Chileans renamed the rocky outcrop ‘Isla Robinson Crusoe’ (and an island he never saw, ‘Isla Alejandro Selkirk’). Some still persist in suggesting that Selkirk’s story wasn’t the source of material for the first part of Robinson Crusoe, however, there is circumstantial evidence that the author of ‘The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner’ met Selkirk in one or other of two Bristol pubs; the ‘Cock and Bottle’ and the ‘Star’.
Alexander Selkirk or Selchraige (Selcraig) as per the family usage, was born in Lower Largo, in 1676. It was in 1695 that he first went to sea and seemingly as a result of his temper. Later, Selkirk the sailor was known for having a short temper and perhaps his inability to get along with other people was precisely why he successfully endured his island sojourn. Parish records show that “Alexr. Selchraige” was summoned before the Kirk Session on the 27th of August for “his undecent beaiviar in ye church”, but he fled to sea before his case was heard as the records also show: “he did not comper, having gone away to þe seas: this business is continued till his return” [sic]. Selkirk returned home briefly, in 1701, only to vanish back to sea after some further trouble and it was another thirteen years before he came back.
In 1703, Selkirk was the Sailing Master on board the galley, ‘Cinque Ports’, which sailed together with the ‘St George’ on a privateering expedition to the ‘South Seas’, led by the English navigator and ‘notorious privateer’, William Dampier, and a Captain Pickering. Selkirk’s captain aboard the ‘Cinque Ports’ was Thomas Stradling, who seems to have gotten a bad press in some stories. Whatever the relationship between Selkirk and Stradling, the Scotsman was abandoned on the island of ‘Más a Tierra’ in the ‘Juan Fernández’ archipelago, 400 miles off Chile, through his own volition. In October of 1704, his ship anchored off the island for a reprieve, but the argumentative Selkirk was concerned about its seaworthiness as it was leaking badly. He forcibly, albeit justifiably, pointed out that the vessel’s timbers were riddled with marine worm and tried to convince some other crew members to stay behind with him. He gambled upon being rescued by a passing ship, but any that so did must’ve passed in the night as he ended up stranded and alone for over four years.
According to Captain Woodes Rogers, who commanded the ship that rescued Selkirk, all that the “wild man” was able to have carried ashore was “his Clothes and Bedding, with a Firelock, some Powder, Bullets, and Tobacco, a Hatchet, a Knife, a Kettle, a Bible, some practical Pieces [instruments for navigation], and his Mathematical Instruments and Books”. According to the British essayist, Sir Richard Steele, who later wrote about Selkirk, the castaway’s heart “yearned within him, and melted at the parting with his Comrades and all Human Society at once” as the vessel put off, but Steele never suggested that Selkirk tried to chase the departing boat, nor called to be taken back on board. It was as well he didn’t, for Selkirk’s resolve saved his life. He later discovered that his ship had sunk near the Peruvian coast soon after he had been left forlorn. Most of the crew drowned, but Captain Stradling and some of the men made it to an island from where they were later taken to Lima by the Spaniards, who “put them in a close dungeon and used them very barbarously”.
As soon as it became apparent that the rescue wasn’t imminent, Selkirk resigned himself to making his island habitable. He was not the first person to live there as in 1575, Spanish explorers had brought goats to the island, and subsequent ships had landed cats and the inevitable rats, as well as having planted radishes and parsnips. In fact, two of Selkirk’s crewmates had spent six months ashore some time previously. Selkirk lived off those goats and tamed feral cats so that they would defend him against the rats that nibbled on his feet at night. He never gave up hope of returning home, but he was prone to “revolutions in his own mind” and unlike Crusoe, with no Man Friday to speak to, he lost some of his speech. He did have a couple of visitors though, but he had to pretend he wasn’t ‘in’ as they were Spanish. His rudeness was entirely in order as they did nasty things like shoot at him and pee against his hiding place; a large tree up which he had climbed.
By a remarkable coincidence, when Selkirk was liberated on the 2nd of February, 1709, Rogers’ pilot was William Dampier; he who had led the fateful 1703-4 expedition. Captain Rogers later wrote that Selkirk “came here last with Capt Dampier, who told me that this was the best Man in her; so I immediately agreed with him to be a Mate on board our Ship”. The first published reference to Selkirk’s adventures occurred in 1712, the year after he returned to England, when Edward Cooke published ‘A Voyage to the South Sea, and around the World’. Cooke wrote, “He was cloath’d in a Goat’s Skin jacket, Breeches, and Cap, sew’d together with Thongs of the same”. Also in 1712, Rogers, Selkirk’s rescuer, published ‘A Cruising Voyage Round the World: First to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and Homewards by the Cape of Good Hope. Begun in 1708, and finish’d in 1711. Containing a Journal of all the Remarkable Transactions. An Account of Alexander Selkirk’s living alone Four Years and Four Months in an Island.’ In that, he remarked on the castaway’s agility: “He ran with wonderful swiftness…. We had a bull-dog, which we sent with several of our nimblest runners to help him in catching goats; but he distanced and tired both the dog and men…”.
In 1713, the journalist Steele wrote about Selkirk’s adventures in ‘The Englishman’ and recorded that the civilised world “…could not, with all its enjoyments, restore [Selkirk] to the tranquillity of his solitude”. Steele noted that “This plain man’s story is a memorable example, that he is happiest who confines his wants to natural necessities”. Selkirk himself was quoted as having said “I now have 800 pounds [his share of booty], but never again will I be as happy as I was then, when I had not a single quarter penny.” Selkirk could never really readjust to life on land and, in 1720, a year after he was immortalised by Defoe, he joined the Royal Navy. Lieutenant Alexander Selkirk died of yellow fever, on board H.M.S. ‘Weymouth’, at 8pm on the 12th of December, 1721. He was buried at sea off the west coast of Africa. Defoe’s novel was published in 1719.
Most folks associate Robinson Crusoe with desert islands, goatskin clothing and Man Friday. Few recollect or are aware that Crusoe’s adventures continued long after he left his Caribbean island and included fighting off snow wolves in the forests of Russia. Perhaps fewer still know that Defoe’s character was inspired by a real life castaway – Alexander Selkirk from Largo, in Fife. Selkirk also inspired ‘Desert Island Discs’, but he wasn’t around to hear the radio programme launched. During the four years and four months he spent on ‘Más a Tierra’ island off the coast of Chile, Selkirk certainly found his way around, exploring the island and waiting for a ship to pass by. Ironically, in 1966, in search of tourist dollars, the Chileans renamed the rocky outcrop ‘Isla Robinson Crusoe’ (and an island he never saw, ‘Isla Alejandro Selkirk’). Some still persist in suggesting that Selkirk’s story wasn’t the source of material for the first part of Robinson Crusoe, however, there is circumstantial evidence that the author of ‘The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner’ met Selkirk in one or other of two Bristol pubs; the ‘Cock and Bottle’ and the ‘Star’.
Alexander Selkirk or Selchraige (Selcraig) as per the family usage, was born in Lower Largo, in 1676. It was in 1695 that he first went to sea and seemingly as a result of his temper. Later, Selkirk the sailor was known for having a short temper and perhaps his inability to get along with other people was precisely why he successfully endured his island sojourn. Parish records show that “Alexr. Selchraige” was summoned before the Kirk Session on the 27th of August for “his undecent beaiviar in ye church”, but he fled to sea before his case was heard as the records also show: “he did not comper, having gone away to þe seas: this business is continued till his return” [sic]. Selkirk returned home briefly, in 1701, only to vanish back to sea after some further trouble and it was another thirteen years before he came back.
In 1703, Selkirk was the Sailing Master on board the galley, ‘Cinque Ports’, which sailed together with the ‘St George’ on a privateering expedition to the ‘South Seas’, led by the English navigator and ‘notorious privateer’, William Dampier, and a Captain Pickering. Selkirk’s captain aboard the ‘Cinque Ports’ was Thomas Stradling, who seems to have gotten a bad press in some stories. Whatever the relationship between Selkirk and Stradling, the Scotsman was abandoned on the island of ‘Más a Tierra’ in the ‘Juan Fernández’ archipelago, 400 miles off Chile, through his own volition. In October of 1704, his ship anchored off the island for a reprieve, but the argumentative Selkirk was concerned about its seaworthiness as it was leaking badly. He forcibly, albeit justifiably, pointed out that the vessel’s timbers were riddled with marine worm and tried to convince some other crew members to stay behind with him. He gambled upon being rescued by a passing ship, but any that so did must’ve passed in the night as he ended up stranded and alone for over four years.
According to Captain Woodes Rogers, who commanded the ship that rescued Selkirk, all that the “wild man” was able to have carried ashore was “his Clothes and Bedding, with a Firelock, some Powder, Bullets, and Tobacco, a Hatchet, a Knife, a Kettle, a Bible, some practical Pieces [instruments for navigation], and his Mathematical Instruments and Books”. According to the British essayist, Sir Richard Steele, who later wrote about Selkirk, the castaway’s heart “yearned within him, and melted at the parting with his Comrades and all Human Society at once” as the vessel put off, but Steele never suggested that Selkirk tried to chase the departing boat, nor called to be taken back on board. It was as well he didn’t, for Selkirk’s resolve saved his life. He later discovered that his ship had sunk near the Peruvian coast soon after he had been left forlorn. Most of the crew drowned, but Captain Stradling and some of the men made it to an island from where they were later taken to Lima by the Spaniards, who “put them in a close dungeon and used them very barbarously”.
As soon as it became apparent that the rescue wasn’t imminent, Selkirk resigned himself to making his island habitable. He was not the first person to live there as in 1575, Spanish explorers had brought goats to the island, and subsequent ships had landed cats and the inevitable rats, as well as having planted radishes and parsnips. In fact, two of Selkirk’s crewmates had spent six months ashore some time previously. Selkirk lived off those goats and tamed feral cats so that they would defend him against the rats that nibbled on his feet at night. He never gave up hope of returning home, but he was prone to “revolutions in his own mind” and unlike Crusoe, with no Man Friday to speak to, he lost some of his speech. He did have a couple of visitors though, but he had to pretend he wasn’t ‘in’ as they were Spanish. His rudeness was entirely in order as they did nasty things like shoot at him and pee against his hiding place; a large tree up which he had climbed.
By a remarkable coincidence, when Selkirk was liberated on the 2nd of February, 1709, Rogers’ pilot was William Dampier; he who had led the fateful 1703-4 expedition. Captain Rogers later wrote that Selkirk “came here last with Capt Dampier, who told me that this was the best Man in her; so I immediately agreed with him to be a Mate on board our Ship”. The first published reference to Selkirk’s adventures occurred in 1712, the year after he returned to England, when Edward Cooke published ‘A Voyage to the South Sea, and around the World’. Cooke wrote, “He was cloath’d in a Goat’s Skin jacket, Breeches, and Cap, sew’d together with Thongs of the same”. Also in 1712, Rogers, Selkirk’s rescuer, published ‘A Cruising Voyage Round the World: First to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and Homewards by the Cape of Good Hope. Begun in 1708, and finish’d in 1711. Containing a Journal of all the Remarkable Transactions. An Account of Alexander Selkirk’s living alone Four Years and Four Months in an Island.’ In that, he remarked on the castaway’s agility: “He ran with wonderful swiftness…. We had a bull-dog, which we sent with several of our nimblest runners to help him in catching goats; but he distanced and tired both the dog and men…”.
In 1713, the journalist Steele wrote about Selkirk’s adventures in ‘The Englishman’ and recorded that the civilised world “…could not, with all its enjoyments, restore [Selkirk] to the tranquillity of his solitude”. Steele noted that “This plain man’s story is a memorable example, that he is happiest who confines his wants to natural necessities”. Selkirk himself was quoted as having said “I now have 800 pounds [his share of booty], but never again will I be as happy as I was then, when I had not a single quarter penny.” Selkirk could never really readjust to life on land and, in 1720, a year after he was immortalised by Defoe, he joined the Royal Navy. Lieutenant Alexander Selkirk died of yellow fever, on board H.M.S. ‘Weymouth’, at 8pm on the 12th of December, 1721. He was buried at sea off the west coast of Africa. Defoe’s novel was published in 1719.
Sir David Brewster FRS
Sir David Brewster FRS, physicist and inventor, was born on the 11th of December, 1781.
Sir David Brewster was a scientist, physicist, natural philosopher and inventor. He was also a child prodigy, a divinity student, a university principal, an editor and a successful writer of popular science. Despite all of that, he is probably most famous for having invented the Rubik’s Cube of the Victorian era or better still, two such crazes; namely the kaleidoscope and the 3D viewer. Indeed, he had as many facets as his famous invention. Whether it was scientific research and invention, religion, education, optics, photography or writing, Brewster was one of the most energetic scholars of his period. As one of his colleagues, R. S. Westfall, said, “What an inexhaustible reservoir of vitality” he had. Probably, few people are aware that he was also a licensed Church of Scotland Minister, but thankfully, he abandoned the Church for science. Curiously, some biographies describe him as a renowned preacher and tutor, but he was terrified of speaking in public and seems to have been unable to preach or teach, because of nerves. James Hogg wrote of Brewster that “the first day he mounted the pulpit was the last …a pity for Kirk …but it was a good day for Science”.
Dr. Peter Mark Roget, of Thesaurus fame, paid tribute to Brewster’s invention in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’, in 1818, writing that “In the memory of man, no invention, and no work, whether addressed to the imagination or to the understanding, ever produced such an effect”. He was writing about the kaleidoscope, but Brewster’s other ‘toy’, a 3D viewer, became a favourite of Queen Victoria after the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition. Brewster had a lifelong interest in optics, but he earned his living by the pen; editing various journals and spending much of his time popularising science. He wrote over 300 scientific papers, including ‘A Treatise Upon New Philosophical Instruments’ in 1813. Among his most noteworthy books are ‘Martyrs Of Science: or the Laws of Galieo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler’ and his two biographies of Sir Isaac Newton. He published a short popular account in Murray’s ‘Family Library’, in 1831, and later, in 1855, the definitive account, ‘Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton’, based on more than twenty years’ patient research.
In an era renowned for artistic, intellectual, scientific, and technical vitality, Brewster's accomplishments were pretty impressive. Brewster’s experiments led to many benefits, which are taken for granted today and, in fact, it was his research on the construction of the lens of the eye that confirmed the existence of “an ordered fibrous arrangement of its parts”. Modern laser technology has scarcely improved on that knowledge. Brewster made lots of discoveries, established several ‘laws’ and invented stuff. In terms of discovery, he left it to others to interpret his empirical observations and provide the ultimate explanation of the phenomena he had proven. In terms of his inventions, sadly he didn’t make a fortune and others were better able to take advantage.
Brewster’s discoveries include: the polarizing structure induced by heat and pressure; crystals with two axes of double refraction; the connection between the refractive index and the polarizing angle; biaxial crystals; and the production of double refraction by irregular heating. Brewster’s laws include: the laws of metallic reflection; laws on the phenomena of crystals, including the connection between optical structure and crystalline forms; and ‘Brewster’s Law’. Brewster discovered his eponymous law in 1813, which has to do with the polarization of light and also identifies the ‘Brewster Angle’ of incidence – where the resultant reflected and refracted rays are at right angles. Brewster’s ‘Angle’ is useful in all kinds of practical applications; from tuning radio signals to building microscopes for examining objects on a molecular scale, and it is central to the development of fibre optics and lasers, and to the study of meteorology and cosmology.
Brewster’s inventions include: the kaleidoscope; the lenticular stereoscope; the binocular camera; the polyzonal lens; the polarimeter; and lighthouse apparatus. Forget the ‘Fresnel lens’; Brewster first described the dioptric apparatus (the polyzonal lens) in 1812 and lobbied for its adoption at least as early as 1820; two years before Fresnel. It was Brewster’s system of lighthouse illumination that fundamentally improved the British lighthouse network. Brewster’s patent for the kaleidoscope was made on the 30th of August, 1817, and its name comes from the Greek ‘kalos’, ‘eidos’ and ‘scopos’, which put together means ‘beautiful-form-watcher’. Over fifty years later, after Brewster’s death, an American called Charles Bush, who was granted patent improvements in 1873 and 1874, became the first person to mass manufacture ‘parlour’ kaleidoscopes. Brewster didn’t invent the sea thermometer (that was H. Negretti and J. W. Zambra in 1857), nor did he invent the stereoscope (that was Sir Charles Wheatstone), but he did invent the lenticular stereoscope – or 3D viewer – by fundamentally improving Wheatstone’s apparatus; introducing lenticular prisms instead of mirrors.
David Brewster was born in Jedburgh on the 11th of December, 1781, and his first introduction to science came from James Veitch of Inchbonny, otherwise known as the ‘peasant astronomer’, who encouraged young David to make sun dials and telescopes. At the age of twelve, David went to the University of Edinburgh to study for the clergy, but despite being awarded an honorary degree in 1800, which carried with it a license to preach as a Minister, he was hooked on science. The previous year, he had begun contributing to the ‘Edinburgh Magazine’ and from 1807, for more than twenty years, he edited the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopaedia’. Later, he was also a leading contributor to the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’. In 1808, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1815, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In the meantime, in 1812, he was awarded his era’s highest literary distinction, a ‘Doctor of Letters’ degree from Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in 1813, he published his first paper.
In 1819, Brewster and Robert Jameson established the ‘Edinburgh Philosophical Journal’ and, in 1824, the ‘Edinburgh Journal of Science’. He played a major role in the formation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831 and the following year, he was knighted. Later, in 1838, Brewster was appointed Principal of the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard at St Andrews, a post he held for twenty-one years, before becoming Principle of the University of Edinburgh in 1859. Sir David Brewster died of pneumonia at Allerly, near Melrose, on the 10th of February, 1868, and he was buried at Melrose Abbey. He is included in the ‘Hall of Heroes’ in the Wallace National Monument.
Sir David Brewster was a scientist, physicist, natural philosopher and inventor. He was also a child prodigy, a divinity student, a university principal, an editor and a successful writer of popular science. Despite all of that, he is probably most famous for having invented the Rubik’s Cube of the Victorian era or better still, two such crazes; namely the kaleidoscope and the 3D viewer. Indeed, he had as many facets as his famous invention. Whether it was scientific research and invention, religion, education, optics, photography or writing, Brewster was one of the most energetic scholars of his period. As one of his colleagues, R. S. Westfall, said, “What an inexhaustible reservoir of vitality” he had. Probably, few people are aware that he was also a licensed Church of Scotland Minister, but thankfully, he abandoned the Church for science. Curiously, some biographies describe him as a renowned preacher and tutor, but he was terrified of speaking in public and seems to have been unable to preach or teach, because of nerves. James Hogg wrote of Brewster that “the first day he mounted the pulpit was the last …a pity for Kirk …but it was a good day for Science”.
Dr. Peter Mark Roget, of Thesaurus fame, paid tribute to Brewster’s invention in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’, in 1818, writing that “In the memory of man, no invention, and no work, whether addressed to the imagination or to the understanding, ever produced such an effect”. He was writing about the kaleidoscope, but Brewster’s other ‘toy’, a 3D viewer, became a favourite of Queen Victoria after the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition. Brewster had a lifelong interest in optics, but he earned his living by the pen; editing various journals and spending much of his time popularising science. He wrote over 300 scientific papers, including ‘A Treatise Upon New Philosophical Instruments’ in 1813. Among his most noteworthy books are ‘Martyrs Of Science: or the Laws of Galieo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler’ and his two biographies of Sir Isaac Newton. He published a short popular account in Murray’s ‘Family Library’, in 1831, and later, in 1855, the definitive account, ‘Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton’, based on more than twenty years’ patient research.
In an era renowned for artistic, intellectual, scientific, and technical vitality, Brewster's accomplishments were pretty impressive. Brewster’s experiments led to many benefits, which are taken for granted today and, in fact, it was his research on the construction of the lens of the eye that confirmed the existence of “an ordered fibrous arrangement of its parts”. Modern laser technology has scarcely improved on that knowledge. Brewster made lots of discoveries, established several ‘laws’ and invented stuff. In terms of discovery, he left it to others to interpret his empirical observations and provide the ultimate explanation of the phenomena he had proven. In terms of his inventions, sadly he didn’t make a fortune and others were better able to take advantage.
Brewster’s discoveries include: the polarizing structure induced by heat and pressure; crystals with two axes of double refraction; the connection between the refractive index and the polarizing angle; biaxial crystals; and the production of double refraction by irregular heating. Brewster’s laws include: the laws of metallic reflection; laws on the phenomena of crystals, including the connection between optical structure and crystalline forms; and ‘Brewster’s Law’. Brewster discovered his eponymous law in 1813, which has to do with the polarization of light and also identifies the ‘Brewster Angle’ of incidence – where the resultant reflected and refracted rays are at right angles. Brewster’s ‘Angle’ is useful in all kinds of practical applications; from tuning radio signals to building microscopes for examining objects on a molecular scale, and it is central to the development of fibre optics and lasers, and to the study of meteorology and cosmology.
Brewster’s inventions include: the kaleidoscope; the lenticular stereoscope; the binocular camera; the polyzonal lens; the polarimeter; and lighthouse apparatus. Forget the ‘Fresnel lens’; Brewster first described the dioptric apparatus (the polyzonal lens) in 1812 and lobbied for its adoption at least as early as 1820; two years before Fresnel. It was Brewster’s system of lighthouse illumination that fundamentally improved the British lighthouse network. Brewster’s patent for the kaleidoscope was made on the 30th of August, 1817, and its name comes from the Greek ‘kalos’, ‘eidos’ and ‘scopos’, which put together means ‘beautiful-form-watcher’. Over fifty years later, after Brewster’s death, an American called Charles Bush, who was granted patent improvements in 1873 and 1874, became the first person to mass manufacture ‘parlour’ kaleidoscopes. Brewster didn’t invent the sea thermometer (that was H. Negretti and J. W. Zambra in 1857), nor did he invent the stereoscope (that was Sir Charles Wheatstone), but he did invent the lenticular stereoscope – or 3D viewer – by fundamentally improving Wheatstone’s apparatus; introducing lenticular prisms instead of mirrors.
David Brewster was born in Jedburgh on the 11th of December, 1781, and his first introduction to science came from James Veitch of Inchbonny, otherwise known as the ‘peasant astronomer’, who encouraged young David to make sun dials and telescopes. At the age of twelve, David went to the University of Edinburgh to study for the clergy, but despite being awarded an honorary degree in 1800, which carried with it a license to preach as a Minister, he was hooked on science. The previous year, he had begun contributing to the ‘Edinburgh Magazine’ and from 1807, for more than twenty years, he edited the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopaedia’. Later, he was also a leading contributor to the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’. In 1808, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1815, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In the meantime, in 1812, he was awarded his era’s highest literary distinction, a ‘Doctor of Letters’ degree from Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in 1813, he published his first paper.
In 1819, Brewster and Robert Jameson established the ‘Edinburgh Philosophical Journal’ and, in 1824, the ‘Edinburgh Journal of Science’. He played a major role in the formation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831 and the following year, he was knighted. Later, in 1838, Brewster was appointed Principal of the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard at St Andrews, a post he held for twenty-one years, before becoming Principle of the University of Edinburgh in 1859. Sir David Brewster died of pneumonia at Allerly, near Melrose, on the 10th of February, 1868, and he was buried at Melrose Abbey. He is included in the ‘Hall of Heroes’ in the Wallace National Monument.
Friday, 10 December 2010
George MacDonald
George MacDonald, author and novelist, clergyman, poet and ‘Christian Fantasy’ writer, was born on the 10th of December, 1824.
If you’ve ever read ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ or ‘Alice in Wonderland’ you’ve got George MacDonald to thank. He wisnae the author of yon tales, but he surely inspired a generation of mythopoeic writers and, no doubt since, countless other authors. Amongst those writers were G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll, and W. H. Auden, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain and J. R. R. Tolkien all admired his work. C. S. Lewis, who compiled an anthology of MacDonald’s work, said “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him”. Lewis also featured MacDonald as a character in ‘The Great Divorce’ and his back-to-front namesake, Lewis Carroll, took the decision to publish ‘Alice in Wonderland’ following MacDonald’s advice and only after its enthusiastic reception by MacDonald’s children. MacDonald himself wrote, “I write, not for children, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.”
George Macdonald published over fifty volumes of fiction, verse, children’s stories, and sermons after first making his name with a religious poem called ‘Within and Without’. His first real success came with his novels of Scottish country life, in which Doric, his local dialect, features in the dialogue. These titles, which include ‘David Elginbrod’, and ‘Alec Forbes of Howglen’, all published between 1862 and 1868, led to MacDonald being credited with founding the overly sentimental ‘Kailyard School’ of Scottish writing. However, his adult fantasy novels, ‘Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women’ and ‘Lilith’, a moral allegory, are probably his definitive works, which between them established a new genre in English. By definition, there wasn’t much of a market for his new fantasy genre, so MacDonald had to supplement his income by writing mainstream novels, of which he wrote more than twenty.
His most enduringly popular books are perhaps his fairy tales for children, of which ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ and ‘At the Back of the North Wind’ are classic examples. His books for kids take place in “a realm of bygone years in a distinctly Scottish landscape” and ‘The Marquis of Lossie’ is set to the north of Huntly, in the fishing town of Cullen. ‘Sir Gibbie’ (‘The Baronet’s Song’ or ‘Wee Sir Gibbie’) is said to have been MacDonald’s favourite and it is usually in print, albeit with much of the rich vocabulary of the old Scottish dialect watered down or ‘revised for the modern day reader’.
MacDonald was also a very spiritual man, whose life was dominated by religion in one way or another. His books are seemingly full of references to God and Christ – or good and evil – but can be enjoyed equally without any ‘godlical’ encumbrances. ‘Alec Forbes’, also known as ‘The Maiden’s Bequest’, is credited with being the book that led to C. S. Lewis’ conversion to Christianity although Lewis famously remarked that while reading ‘Phantastes’ he “knew [he’d] crossed a great frontier” and went on to write, “I know hardly any other writer who seems closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ himself”.
MacDonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church and Calvinism, but give him his due, he saw through that evil doctrine of predestination. The Christ he believed in was vastly different from the Calvinist’s other doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement and their God’s love of some and denial of others. Far more palatable to most religious people, surely, is MacDonald’s teaching that Christ had come to save people from their sins and not from a ‘divine penalty’ for their sins. He saw the problem as not being the need to appease a wrathful God, but rather the disease of cosmic evil – a staple diet of any novel in the genre of mythopoeia.
George Macdonald was born in Huntly on the 10th of December, 1824. Instead of going to the local parish school, he went to an independent school, where the Calvinist discipline was harsh, but his attendance was patchy as he often suffered long periods of illness. However, he was bright enough to win a bursary to King’s College at the University of Aberdeen, where he was later granted an honorary doctorate. He attended during the academic years of 1840-41 and 1844-45, where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy. He read deeply in romantic literature and poetry and was described as a “strikingly colourful, if melancholy” student. He harboured ambitions of becoming a poet, but dutifully entered the Independent Theological College in Highbury, in London, where he studied for the Congregationalist Ministry. It was there that MacDonald eventually rejected all that Calvinist stuff and he left without taking his degree.
Instead, in 1850, he became the Pastor of the Trinity Congregational Church in Arundel, but had to resign after less than three years, because the congregation wanted more ‘fire and brimstone’. He was even accused of heresy and his salary was cut in half. He moved on to Manchester, where he founded his own Church and, in 1855, published ‘Within and Without’, which drew the admiration of Charles Kingsley and Lady Byron. After a sojourn in Algiers for the sake of his health, he returned to London, where he taught at the University of London and was also the editor of ‘Good Words for the Young’. In 1857, he moved to Hastings and it was there he wrote ‘Poems’ and ‘Phantastes’, in 1858. He converted to the Church of England in 1860, becoming a lay preacher and he also became the first Professor of English Literature at Bedford College.
He undertook a successful lecture tour of the United States between 1972 and 1873, and was turned down a well paid ministerial position. Despite being a published writer, he was often forced to rely on the charity of his friends, such as Lady Byron and John Ruskin. He was also granted a pension in 1877, at the request of Queen Victoria. From 1881 to 1902, because of his health and the British climate, MacDonald spent the winters writing in Bordighera on the Ligurian coast of Italy, and the summers lecturing and touring in Britain. After the publication of ‘Lilith’ in 1895, his health began to deteriorate. In 1898, he suffered a stroke and afterwards barely spoke a word until his death in Ashtead, in Surrey, on the 18th of September, 1905. His remains were cremated and taken for burial to Bordighera. There is a memorial to George MacDonald in the Drumblade Churchyard, in Aberdeenshire.
If you’ve ever read ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ or ‘Alice in Wonderland’ you’ve got George MacDonald to thank. He wisnae the author of yon tales, but he surely inspired a generation of mythopoeic writers and, no doubt since, countless other authors. Amongst those writers were G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll, and W. H. Auden, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain and J. R. R. Tolkien all admired his work. C. S. Lewis, who compiled an anthology of MacDonald’s work, said “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him”. Lewis also featured MacDonald as a character in ‘The Great Divorce’ and his back-to-front namesake, Lewis Carroll, took the decision to publish ‘Alice in Wonderland’ following MacDonald’s advice and only after its enthusiastic reception by MacDonald’s children. MacDonald himself wrote, “I write, not for children, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.”
George Macdonald published over fifty volumes of fiction, verse, children’s stories, and sermons after first making his name with a religious poem called ‘Within and Without’. His first real success came with his novels of Scottish country life, in which Doric, his local dialect, features in the dialogue. These titles, which include ‘David Elginbrod’, and ‘Alec Forbes of Howglen’, all published between 1862 and 1868, led to MacDonald being credited with founding the overly sentimental ‘Kailyard School’ of Scottish writing. However, his adult fantasy novels, ‘Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women’ and ‘Lilith’, a moral allegory, are probably his definitive works, which between them established a new genre in English. By definition, there wasn’t much of a market for his new fantasy genre, so MacDonald had to supplement his income by writing mainstream novels, of which he wrote more than twenty.
His most enduringly popular books are perhaps his fairy tales for children, of which ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ and ‘At the Back of the North Wind’ are classic examples. His books for kids take place in “a realm of bygone years in a distinctly Scottish landscape” and ‘The Marquis of Lossie’ is set to the north of Huntly, in the fishing town of Cullen. ‘Sir Gibbie’ (‘The Baronet’s Song’ or ‘Wee Sir Gibbie’) is said to have been MacDonald’s favourite and it is usually in print, albeit with much of the rich vocabulary of the old Scottish dialect watered down or ‘revised for the modern day reader’.
MacDonald was also a very spiritual man, whose life was dominated by religion in one way or another. His books are seemingly full of references to God and Christ – or good and evil – but can be enjoyed equally without any ‘godlical’ encumbrances. ‘Alec Forbes’, also known as ‘The Maiden’s Bequest’, is credited with being the book that led to C. S. Lewis’ conversion to Christianity although Lewis famously remarked that while reading ‘Phantastes’ he “knew [he’d] crossed a great frontier” and went on to write, “I know hardly any other writer who seems closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ himself”.
MacDonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church and Calvinism, but give him his due, he saw through that evil doctrine of predestination. The Christ he believed in was vastly different from the Calvinist’s other doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement and their God’s love of some and denial of others. Far more palatable to most religious people, surely, is MacDonald’s teaching that Christ had come to save people from their sins and not from a ‘divine penalty’ for their sins. He saw the problem as not being the need to appease a wrathful God, but rather the disease of cosmic evil – a staple diet of any novel in the genre of mythopoeia.
George Macdonald was born in Huntly on the 10th of December, 1824. Instead of going to the local parish school, he went to an independent school, where the Calvinist discipline was harsh, but his attendance was patchy as he often suffered long periods of illness. However, he was bright enough to win a bursary to King’s College at the University of Aberdeen, where he was later granted an honorary doctorate. He attended during the academic years of 1840-41 and 1844-45, where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy. He read deeply in romantic literature and poetry and was described as a “strikingly colourful, if melancholy” student. He harboured ambitions of becoming a poet, but dutifully entered the Independent Theological College in Highbury, in London, where he studied for the Congregationalist Ministry. It was there that MacDonald eventually rejected all that Calvinist stuff and he left without taking his degree.
Instead, in 1850, he became the Pastor of the Trinity Congregational Church in Arundel, but had to resign after less than three years, because the congregation wanted more ‘fire and brimstone’. He was even accused of heresy and his salary was cut in half. He moved on to Manchester, where he founded his own Church and, in 1855, published ‘Within and Without’, which drew the admiration of Charles Kingsley and Lady Byron. After a sojourn in Algiers for the sake of his health, he returned to London, where he taught at the University of London and was also the editor of ‘Good Words for the Young’. In 1857, he moved to Hastings and it was there he wrote ‘Poems’ and ‘Phantastes’, in 1858. He converted to the Church of England in 1860, becoming a lay preacher and he also became the first Professor of English Literature at Bedford College.
He undertook a successful lecture tour of the United States between 1972 and 1873, and was turned down a well paid ministerial position. Despite being a published writer, he was often forced to rely on the charity of his friends, such as Lady Byron and John Ruskin. He was also granted a pension in 1877, at the request of Queen Victoria. From 1881 to 1902, because of his health and the British climate, MacDonald spent the winters writing in Bordighera on the Ligurian coast of Italy, and the summers lecturing and touring in Britain. After the publication of ‘Lilith’ in 1895, his health began to deteriorate. In 1898, he suffered a stroke and afterwards barely spoke a word until his death in Ashtead, in Surrey, on the 18th of September, 1905. His remains were cremated and taken for burial to Bordighera. There is a memorial to George MacDonald in the Drumblade Churchyard, in Aberdeenshire.
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