James Watt, instrument maker, mechanical engineer and inventor, died on the 25th of August, 1819.
Contrary to what many people probably believe, James Watt did not invent the steam engine. In fact, steam engines were already in existence and being used to pump water out of mines nearly forty years before Watt was born. Thomas Savery patented a steam engine in 1698, which was improved in 1712 by another Thomas, a Mr. Newcomen, who died before Watt was born and who used in his advanced design the piston, which had been invented twenty-two years earlier, in 1690, by the Frenchman, Denis Papin. The man responsible for most of the myth surrounding James Watt having invented steam engines was another Frenchman, François Jean Dominique Arago, an eminent mathematician and physicist. In 1839, twenty years after Watt’s death, Arago penned a eulogy and it was therein that the story of the young James sitting by the kitchen range watching a steaming kettle first appeared.
However, taking James Watt’s fundamental contribution to steam engine technology into account, it’s not surprising that he is often mistaken as the creator of the steam engine. It’s stretching things too far to suggest that nearly every successful and important invention that marked the emergence of steam power originated in the fertile brain of James Watt. About that, we can be sure the supporters of fellow Scot and Boulton & Watt employee, William Murdoch, would have something to say. What is certain, however, is that the Industrial Revolution got an almighty kick start from the work of James Watt. His revolutionary improvements to Newcomen’s steam engine led to what we could rightly call the Steam Age.
Watt’s creative genius converted a machine used to pump water out of Cornish mines into the driving force behind the rise of cotton and woollen mills in the heart of industrial England. Watt helped to radically transform the world from ‘rural agricultural’ into ‘urban industrial’ as his engines were used to pump bellows for blast furnaces, power huge hammers for shaping forged metals, and turn machinery in the mills. By 1800, when the Boulton & Watt patent rights finally expired, after extensions granted in 1778 and 1785, there were more than five hundred of Watt’s machines in Britain’s mines and factories and they had earned him a small fortune in royalties. Watt invented the term ‘horsepower’ when he calculated a horse’s pulling power in comparison to that of his engine. He used his calculation to determine the sum able to be saved by using his engine instead of horses. From that reckoning, Watt determined an annual payment, equal to a third of the potential saving, which Boulton & Watt was to receive for the duration of validity of Watt’s patent. As an example of such sums, they got £800 per year for three engines operated by one firm in Chacewater, in Cornwall.
Watt’s initial efforts at increasing the effiency of the steam engine stemmed from another calculation. He figured that eighty per cent of the energy was wasted on heating up the cylinder every cycle. Watt solved that problem by inventing a tubed condenser and an air pump or ‘stuffing box’ to prevent steam from escaping, thus maintaining a vacuum in the chamber. He also created ‘steam-jacketing’ insulation in order to maintain the high temperatures needed for maximum efficiency. Murdoch didn’t have a hand in that.
Other improvements that Watt made upon Newcomen’s engine, without any input from Murdoch, included oil lubrication and the ‘steam indicator’ or pressure gauge. A further major innovation of Watt’s was the ‘double-action’ piston engine, in which steam is admitted alternately into each end of the cylinder so that the piston is driven in both directions, rather than relying on atmospheric pressure to complete the ‘condensation-vacuum’ stroke-cycle. The invention of which Watt was most proud was the rigid, three bar ‘parallel motion’ linkage, created to match the rocking motion of the beam (which traces an arc) with the linear motion of the piston. That enabled the piston to push the beam on both upward and downward strokes. Another major contribution to instrumentation and machine control that was developed by Watt deserves a mention; the centrifugal governor, which came to be known as the ‘Watt governor’. It included a steam throttling valve and a mechanism, which regulated steam flow to the piston and maintained a constant engine speed.
Watt is also credited with inventing the ‘sun and planet’ gear system, but so too is William Murdoch. It may well be that the two Scotsmen collaborated, despite Watt’s name being on the 1781 patent. That Watt registered the patent shouldn’t be too surprising, considering that Murdoch was his employee; things would be the same today and Murdoch never contested the patent. The new fangled gear ingeniously changed the reciprocating, up-and-down motion of the piston beam end, which was good for pumping water and draining mines, to a rotary movement that could be used to drive machinery for grinding, weaving and milling. In addition, it permitted the wheel to turn more than once per piston stroke, resulting in a major improvement in productivity. The rotary engine was undoubtedly key to another form of revolution; the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born in Greenock on the 19th of January, 1736. Wee Jamesie was a peely wally creatur and as a consequence, he got most of his elementary schooling at home from his Ma and Pa. James attended school irregularly, but by his early teens had demonstrated an aptitude for instrumentation and tooling, gained through the encouragement of his shipwright father. In 1754, as a result of showing such promise, James was sent to Glasgow to become an instrument maker, where he so impressed a university professor, Robert Dick, that he was promptly advised him to move to London. Nothing loath, James rode south in 1755 and managed to find work. Notwithstanding the rules of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, which required a seven-year apprenticeship, James was taken on by a John Morgan, but ended up working ten-hour days in an attempt to condense the seven years into as short a time as possible.
Unsurprisingly, James’ poor health didn’t improve in ‘the Smoke’ and after a year, he was back in Glasgow. However, because he hadn’t completed a formal apprenticeship, James fell foul of the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen, which obstructed his plans to open up shop, despite his newly acquired trade being little practised in Scotland. Thankfully, as a result of earlier friendships, Glasgow University offered him the use of premises within its precincts, where, from 1757 until 1763 when he was allowed to open a workshop in the Saltmarket, Watt repaired scientific apparatus and made musical instruments. Those instruments comprised Watt’s earliest inventions, in which he contrived improvements to the construction of organs.
By 1768, Watt had begun a secondary career as an engineer and surveyor. Watt was employed to survey the Forth & Clyde Canal and, in 1773, the Caledonian Canal, built by Thomas Telford. Watt was responsible for the superintendence of the Monkland canal and he surveyed the Perth & Forfar canal and the Crinan canal, which was built by John Rennie. Not content with instrument making, surveying and subsequently becoming famous as the ‘father of steam’, Watt turned his hand to other things during his long life. He invented micrometers for measuring distances at sea and, in 1780, Watt gained a patent for a copy machine. And, not content with inventing the first photocopy machine, Watt also turned out a portable version.
James Watt breathed his last on the 25th of August, 1819, at his home in Handsworth, in Birmingham. He was buried on the 2nd of September in the grounds of St. Mary’s Church, in Handsworth. History’s view of James Watt is substantially more complimentary than this quote from a letter to Joseph Black, in which he wrote, “Of all things in life, there is nothing more foolish than inventing; and probably the majority of inventors have been led to the same opinion by their own experiences.”
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Alexander Wilson
Alexander Wilson, weaver, peddler, poacher, poet, engraver, surveyor, schoolteacher, artist, writer and ornithologist, died on the 23rd of August, 1813.
Alexander Wilson died on the same day as William Wallace, but substantially more peacefully and over five hundred years later. Wilson isnae as famous as Wallace, unless you’re big into ornithology, but he was just as Scottish, albeit American ornithologists would claim him as their own, not least as he became an American citizen. Wilson began his adult career weaving patterns in Paisley, before he became inspired by the poetry of Robert Burns and had a go at writing the odd bit poem himsel’. Sadly for his aspirations, he wisnae vera guid at the versification and took himsel’ off to America, where he became famous as an observer of birdies. In the United States and elsewhere, due to his ‘American Ornithology’, Wilson is regarded as the ‘founding father’ of that science in the ‘New Continent’. There are lots of Scottish ‘founding fathers’ – it must be in the DNA.
Wilson’s acclaimed, 13-volume ‘Ornithology’ was the first comprehensive work on the birds of the eastern United States. His Meisterwerk contains masterly prose, in concise, descriptive essays, and vivid illustrations, noted for their accuracy in depicting the plumage of individual birds. His poetry aside, Wilson was undoubtedly as good a writer as the artist he came to be, writing of the eagle as “fierce, contemplative, daring and tyrannical – attributes not exerted but on particular occasions, but, when put forth, overpowering all opposition.” Each volume contains information regarding 40 or so species of birds, 26 of which were previously unknown and discovered by Wilson. As a pioneering endeavour, Wilson’s ornithological volumes have never been surpassed and his discoveries included the whippoorwill, the song sparrow, the canvasback and the Mississippi kite, together with another 34 distinct American species. In addition, several species were named in his honour, including Wilson’s Plover, and Wilson’s Warbler.
Alexander Wilson was born in Paisley on the 6th of July, 1766. He hardly went to school and biographies suggest that he was entirely self-educated. In any case, when he was thirteen, he was apprenticed as a weaver and spent five (or ten?) years practicing that trade. He then started to practice writing poems and became an itinerant peddler and (at times) a poacher, but interspersed that with periods back at the loom, which is probably why some count his weaving period as ten years. Wilson’s poems were written in the Scots vernacular after the fashion of Burns and in travelling, he gained inspiration for his versification. An early poem, written in 1791 and called ‘Watty and Meg’ became fairly well known and as a result, he got a bit of a reputation as a minor bard. Wilson contributed to ‘The Glasgow Advertiser’ and ‘The Bee’ in Edinburgh, and tried his hand at satire, where he made the mistake of poking fun at some capitalists from Paisley. Those toffs lacked a sense of humour and, after one libellous poem entitled ‘The Shark’, directed against a local mill owner, “[Wilson] was immediately prosecuted before the sheriff, sentenced to a short imprisonment, and compelled to burn the libel at the public cross of Paisley with his own hand.”
Opinion differs on the literary merits of Wilson’s poetry, but in any case, in 1794, released from jail, discouraged by lack of literary success, poverty and the enmity of tyrannical industrialists, Wilson emigrated to America. The penniless Wilson went ashore from the ‘Swift’ at New Castle and thereafter, he gained work around Delaware and Pennsylvania, picking up odd jobs, and even following in his father’s footsteps with a little illegal distilling on the side. Wilson kept himself alive and busy until, around 1802, he took charge of a country school at Gray’s Ferry, in Philadelphia, in a building that looked uncomfortably like the jail he’d left behind in Scotland. That was the turning point in Wilson’s life; when he met the naturalist, William Bartram, who triggered his nascent interest in ornithology and encouraged him on the path of scientific endeavour.
Bartram should also be credited with helping Wilson to learn to draw birds, from copying illustrations from his library, and teaching him botany and the Latin he needed in order to be able to classify species. Wilson began by sketching owls on the backs of old letters and once, using a stuffed owl as a model, he drew it with a live mouse tied to its claws. Wilson then made the decision that was to make him famous. As he said himself, “Think for thyself one good idea, but known to be thine own, is better than a thousand gleaned from fields by others sown.” His one good idea was to produce a comprehensive, illustrated work on the ornithology of the United States.
In 1807, Wilson got a job in Philadelphia as assistant editor to the publisher of an encyclopaedia and, in 1808, he travelled all over the eastern United States in search of subscribers to his plan. With a few plates tucked under his arm, he intended to sell enough subscriptions for the first volume, at $12 a throw, get that printed and then carry on to sell full subscriptions at $120 for a 10-volume set. He calculated he’d need 200 subscriptions to fund his travels and enable him to complete the remaining nine volumes. One of his early, notable customers was Thomas Paine. On his first fund raising trip, Wilson sold only 41 subscriptions, but he persevered and got enough to persuade Samuel Bradford, the encyclopaedia publisher, to finance the first book. He then borrowed some copperplates and an engraver’s tool and set about engraving his own drawings. Armed with that first book, Wilson set off on yet another fundraising trip and managed to get 250 subscribers and the green light to ‘go’.
On the 23rd of February, 1810, Wilson then set off down the Ohio River to complete his task. All told, he spent ten years roaming the American wilderness, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River and from Florida to Niagara Falls, bird-watching in search of new species, and gathering specimens and materials for his classic work. He walked long distances with little food and shelter, carrying his drawing equipment with him, and with near total disregard for his health, which suffered as a result. On his return from Niagara Falls, after a 1,200 mile stroll in the woods, Wilson wrote a book-length poem called ‘The Foresters’, in which he accounted for every pheasant and quail, duck and plover that he shot on the journey. The first seven volumes of ‘American Ornithology’ were published between 1808 and 1813 and, while he was preparing the eighth volume, Wilson’ health broke down.
During the War of 1812, Wilson was arrested as a spy, but unlike Wallace, he wasn’t sentenced to death by disembowelling and dismemberment. Alexander Wilson died, of dysentery, in Philadelphia, on the 23rd of August, 1813. Wilson’s eighth volume was completed from his manuscript notes and published in 1814 by his friend and biographer, George Ord, who also completed a ninth volume. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon, published four additional volumes between 1825 and 1833. A collection of Wilson’s poetry was also published posthumously, in 1816, as ‘Poems; Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’.
Alexander Wilson died on the same day as William Wallace, but substantially more peacefully and over five hundred years later. Wilson isnae as famous as Wallace, unless you’re big into ornithology, but he was just as Scottish, albeit American ornithologists would claim him as their own, not least as he became an American citizen. Wilson began his adult career weaving patterns in Paisley, before he became inspired by the poetry of Robert Burns and had a go at writing the odd bit poem himsel’. Sadly for his aspirations, he wisnae vera guid at the versification and took himsel’ off to America, where he became famous as an observer of birdies. In the United States and elsewhere, due to his ‘American Ornithology’, Wilson is regarded as the ‘founding father’ of that science in the ‘New Continent’. There are lots of Scottish ‘founding fathers’ – it must be in the DNA.
Wilson’s acclaimed, 13-volume ‘Ornithology’ was the first comprehensive work on the birds of the eastern United States. His Meisterwerk contains masterly prose, in concise, descriptive essays, and vivid illustrations, noted for their accuracy in depicting the plumage of individual birds. His poetry aside, Wilson was undoubtedly as good a writer as the artist he came to be, writing of the eagle as “fierce, contemplative, daring and tyrannical – attributes not exerted but on particular occasions, but, when put forth, overpowering all opposition.” Each volume contains information regarding 40 or so species of birds, 26 of which were previously unknown and discovered by Wilson. As a pioneering endeavour, Wilson’s ornithological volumes have never been surpassed and his discoveries included the whippoorwill, the song sparrow, the canvasback and the Mississippi kite, together with another 34 distinct American species. In addition, several species were named in his honour, including Wilson’s Plover, and Wilson’s Warbler.
Alexander Wilson was born in Paisley on the 6th of July, 1766. He hardly went to school and biographies suggest that he was entirely self-educated. In any case, when he was thirteen, he was apprenticed as a weaver and spent five (or ten?) years practicing that trade. He then started to practice writing poems and became an itinerant peddler and (at times) a poacher, but interspersed that with periods back at the loom, which is probably why some count his weaving period as ten years. Wilson’s poems were written in the Scots vernacular after the fashion of Burns and in travelling, he gained inspiration for his versification. An early poem, written in 1791 and called ‘Watty and Meg’ became fairly well known and as a result, he got a bit of a reputation as a minor bard. Wilson contributed to ‘The Glasgow Advertiser’ and ‘The Bee’ in Edinburgh, and tried his hand at satire, where he made the mistake of poking fun at some capitalists from Paisley. Those toffs lacked a sense of humour and, after one libellous poem entitled ‘The Shark’, directed against a local mill owner, “[Wilson] was immediately prosecuted before the sheriff, sentenced to a short imprisonment, and compelled to burn the libel at the public cross of Paisley with his own hand.”
Opinion differs on the literary merits of Wilson’s poetry, but in any case, in 1794, released from jail, discouraged by lack of literary success, poverty and the enmity of tyrannical industrialists, Wilson emigrated to America. The penniless Wilson went ashore from the ‘Swift’ at New Castle and thereafter, he gained work around Delaware and Pennsylvania, picking up odd jobs, and even following in his father’s footsteps with a little illegal distilling on the side. Wilson kept himself alive and busy until, around 1802, he took charge of a country school at Gray’s Ferry, in Philadelphia, in a building that looked uncomfortably like the jail he’d left behind in Scotland. That was the turning point in Wilson’s life; when he met the naturalist, William Bartram, who triggered his nascent interest in ornithology and encouraged him on the path of scientific endeavour.
Bartram should also be credited with helping Wilson to learn to draw birds, from copying illustrations from his library, and teaching him botany and the Latin he needed in order to be able to classify species. Wilson began by sketching owls on the backs of old letters and once, using a stuffed owl as a model, he drew it with a live mouse tied to its claws. Wilson then made the decision that was to make him famous. As he said himself, “Think for thyself one good idea, but known to be thine own, is better than a thousand gleaned from fields by others sown.” His one good idea was to produce a comprehensive, illustrated work on the ornithology of the United States.
In 1807, Wilson got a job in Philadelphia as assistant editor to the publisher of an encyclopaedia and, in 1808, he travelled all over the eastern United States in search of subscribers to his plan. With a few plates tucked under his arm, he intended to sell enough subscriptions for the first volume, at $12 a throw, get that printed and then carry on to sell full subscriptions at $120 for a 10-volume set. He calculated he’d need 200 subscriptions to fund his travels and enable him to complete the remaining nine volumes. One of his early, notable customers was Thomas Paine. On his first fund raising trip, Wilson sold only 41 subscriptions, but he persevered and got enough to persuade Samuel Bradford, the encyclopaedia publisher, to finance the first book. He then borrowed some copperplates and an engraver’s tool and set about engraving his own drawings. Armed with that first book, Wilson set off on yet another fundraising trip and managed to get 250 subscribers and the green light to ‘go’.
On the 23rd of February, 1810, Wilson then set off down the Ohio River to complete his task. All told, he spent ten years roaming the American wilderness, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River and from Florida to Niagara Falls, bird-watching in search of new species, and gathering specimens and materials for his classic work. He walked long distances with little food and shelter, carrying his drawing equipment with him, and with near total disregard for his health, which suffered as a result. On his return from Niagara Falls, after a 1,200 mile stroll in the woods, Wilson wrote a book-length poem called ‘The Foresters’, in which he accounted for every pheasant and quail, duck and plover that he shot on the journey. The first seven volumes of ‘American Ornithology’ were published between 1808 and 1813 and, while he was preparing the eighth volume, Wilson’ health broke down.
During the War of 1812, Wilson was arrested as a spy, but unlike Wallace, he wasn’t sentenced to death by disembowelling and dismemberment. Alexander Wilson died, of dysentery, in Philadelphia, on the 23rd of August, 1813. Wilson’s eighth volume was completed from his manuscript notes and published in 1814 by his friend and biographer, George Ord, who also completed a ninth volume. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon, published four additional volumes between 1825 and 1833. A collection of Wilson’s poetry was also published posthumously, in 1816, as ‘Poems; Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’.
Sunday, 21 August 2011
The Battle of Dunkeld
The Battle of Dunkeld was fought on the 21st of August, 1689.
The Battle of Dunkeld was the middle battle of three involving the Jacobites in 17th Century Scotland. The other battles in what was called ‘Dundie’s Rising’ were Killiecrankie and the Haughs of Cromdale. It’s not clear which side won the battle at Dunkeld as it depends on what you might class as the measure of victory or defeat. Maybe the Jacobites won on points, because of the numbers of enemy dead; maybe the Orange Royalists won on points, because they were outnumbered by odds of over 3:1 at the outset, but remained defiant on the day. What is clear is that Scotland lost that day. It had long since lost its sense of proportion. It lost many a good man, on either side, fighting their ain in Dunkeld.
In a service to commemorate the 300th Anniversary of the relatively little known Battle of Dunkeld, the Reverend James Harkness, Chaplain General to Her Majesty’s Forces, said, “…here [at Dunkeld], if not a major military feat of arms, there took place a decisive battle that was to determine the shape of Church and State in Scotland and beyond.” He was probably right, at least, in terms of its aftermath. Successive Jacobite Rebellions (or Risings), in 1708, 1709, 1715, 1719 and 1745, sought to redress the balance in favour of the deposed Stuart Monarchy and its flavour of religious observance, but they didn’t succeed and as they say, the rest is history. Whether they won or lost at Dunkeld (they lost at Cromdale), the Jacobites lost the first Jacobite war.
Back in 1689, less than a month after the Jacobite victory at the Battle of Killiecrankie, hope seemed to remain for the aspirations of the Catholic supporters of the ex-King James. Despite the untimely death of the Viscount of Dundee, otherwise known as John Graham of Claverhouse, ‘Bonnie Dundee’ or ‘Bluidy Clavers’, the Government of their Protestant Royal Orange Majesties, William and Mary, was jittery about its prospects for victory. General Mackay had been forced to retreat from Blair Atholl and the road to Perth and the South was open. With ‘Clavers’ at the helm, who knows what the Jacobites might have achieved, but Dundee was deid and his successor was an Alexander only by name. Instead of marching south to exploit its success, Colonel Alexander Cannon, appointed ahead of the formidable Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, led the Jacobite army north. Another eedjit, also under Irish influence, did much the same thing in 1746.
Into the vacuum that was Dunkeld, the Government dispatched Lieutenant-Colonel William Cleland and his as yet untested regiment – the 1200 or so men of the newly formed Cameronians. The pragmatic Covenanting revolutionary against the dashing and charismatic ‘Angel of Death’ could’ve been the bout of the season, but it wasn’t to be as the ‘Bonnie Butcher’ of Bothwell Brig had got his comeuppance. It’s strange, though, how the myth of ‘Bonnie Dundee’ survives, despite John Galt’s ‘Ringhan Gilhaize’ and any half decent, non-partisan look at the ‘Killing Times’ and what had gone before.
Regardless of your religious persuasion, surely nobody could look back and justify the merciless hounding and persecution of the Covenanters, most of whom were ordinary folk – the poor peasantry – merely wanting to be left in peace to worship after their conscience. The Covenanters, at a height of fanaticism, decided they should obey their ‘Heavenly King’ rather than King Charles (or King James in turn), but the response of the Privy Council and its dread tribunals, led by the likes of Archbishop Sharp and ‘Bluidy’ Mackenzie, made the ‘Holy Office’ of the Inquisition look quite tame. Scotland was governed by the Committee of Public Affairs whose Acts were barbarically executed by the swords of a thousand men like Sir James Turner and ‘Bonnie Dundee’.
General Mackay had been against sending the Cameronians to Dunkeld, pointing to the bitter animosity between them and the Jacobite Highlanders. Mackay’s opinion was founded on events that occurred soon after the murder of Sharp, when the Council brought to the shires of Lanark and Ayr an army of 10,000 marauding Highlanders. That ‘Highland Host’ neither knew nor cared anything about the quarrel, but was happy to terrorise the western Lowlands, before it retreated homewards with its spoil. As James Kirkton was to write in ‘The secret and true history of the church of Scotland from the Restoration to the year 1678’, “you would have thought by their baggage that they had been at the sack of a besieged city.” To make matters worse, Lieutenant-Colonel Cleland, who was a bit poet in his spare time, had mocked that host in derisive doggerel.
The Cameronians were originally a guerrilla force formed by the fanatical religious reformer and martyr, Richard Cameron, who was killed in a battle at Airsmoss on the 20th of July, 1680. The regiment named in Cameron’s honour was formed on the 14th of May, 1689, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with Clan Cameron, who fought for the Jacobite cause, nor ever should they be confused with the 79th Cameron Highlanders. Under Charles II & II and James VII & II, the Cameronians had been zealous, covenanting outlaws, but under William (III & II) and Mary (II & II), they were “saviours of the (inglorious) Revolution.” You can find a stirring account of the battle between these sworn foes, in Andrew Crichton’s ‘Life of Colonel J. Blackadder’ and in James Browne’s ‘A History of the Highlands and the Highland Clans’.
The Battle of Dunkeld was neither short nor sweet, ending around 11 p.m. with the destruction of all but three of its houses. The battle took place within the town, through the streets and around the Cathedral, which still shows bullet marks in its eastern gable. When the Jacobite horde entered the un-walled town, the outnumbered Cameronians took refuge behind the walls of the cathedral, the Atholl mansion house and adjoining gardens. The Jacobites, numbering as many as 4000 Scots and Irish, also occupied several houses and, denied the scope for their famous Highland Charge, they didn’t take too well to the idea of repeated frontal assaults against the muskets and pikes of entrenched and determined Lowland foes.
Not keen on surrender, when they ran out of ball, the Cameronians resorted to the sacrilege of stripping lead from the roof of the Cathedral to keep up their fire. By that time, Cleland had fallen, shot in the head and the liver within an hour of the first assault, but rather than cause his men despair, he attempted to craw away to die unseen in a neuk of the Cathedral. Major Henderson assumed command, but was killed almost immediately, whereupon Captain Munro was left in charge. Munro it was who resorted to the desperate act of setting the town afire when he sent out a party “with blazing fagots on the ends of long pikes” to set fire to the dry thatch and dislodge the Highlanders. In one house, as Browne reports, as many as sixteen Jacobites perished when “…pikemen had locked the doors of such of the houses as had keys standing in them and the unhappy intruders, being thus cut off from escape, perished in the flames.”
The ‘Bloody Irishes’ as the now blooded Cameronians called the Jacobites, made off after the conflagration, refusing Cannon’s pleas to resume the attack by crying they were ready to fight against men, “but would not fight any more against devils!” The Cameronians’ ‘success’ was founded on stout defence and destroying the town they were sent to defend. Their fatalities are unknown, but were undoubtedly substantial, whilst the Jacobites lost less than three hundred men before they retired to the sound of singing – psalms of praise.
The Battle of Dunkeld was the middle battle of three involving the Jacobites in 17th Century Scotland. The other battles in what was called ‘Dundie’s Rising’ were Killiecrankie and the Haughs of Cromdale. It’s not clear which side won the battle at Dunkeld as it depends on what you might class as the measure of victory or defeat. Maybe the Jacobites won on points, because of the numbers of enemy dead; maybe the Orange Royalists won on points, because they were outnumbered by odds of over 3:1 at the outset, but remained defiant on the day. What is clear is that Scotland lost that day. It had long since lost its sense of proportion. It lost many a good man, on either side, fighting their ain in Dunkeld.
In a service to commemorate the 300th Anniversary of the relatively little known Battle of Dunkeld, the Reverend James Harkness, Chaplain General to Her Majesty’s Forces, said, “…here [at Dunkeld], if not a major military feat of arms, there took place a decisive battle that was to determine the shape of Church and State in Scotland and beyond.” He was probably right, at least, in terms of its aftermath. Successive Jacobite Rebellions (or Risings), in 1708, 1709, 1715, 1719 and 1745, sought to redress the balance in favour of the deposed Stuart Monarchy and its flavour of religious observance, but they didn’t succeed and as they say, the rest is history. Whether they won or lost at Dunkeld (they lost at Cromdale), the Jacobites lost the first Jacobite war.
Back in 1689, less than a month after the Jacobite victory at the Battle of Killiecrankie, hope seemed to remain for the aspirations of the Catholic supporters of the ex-King James. Despite the untimely death of the Viscount of Dundee, otherwise known as John Graham of Claverhouse, ‘Bonnie Dundee’ or ‘Bluidy Clavers’, the Government of their Protestant Royal Orange Majesties, William and Mary, was jittery about its prospects for victory. General Mackay had been forced to retreat from Blair Atholl and the road to Perth and the South was open. With ‘Clavers’ at the helm, who knows what the Jacobites might have achieved, but Dundee was deid and his successor was an Alexander only by name. Instead of marching south to exploit its success, Colonel Alexander Cannon, appointed ahead of the formidable Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, led the Jacobite army north. Another eedjit, also under Irish influence, did much the same thing in 1746.
Into the vacuum that was Dunkeld, the Government dispatched Lieutenant-Colonel William Cleland and his as yet untested regiment – the 1200 or so men of the newly formed Cameronians. The pragmatic Covenanting revolutionary against the dashing and charismatic ‘Angel of Death’ could’ve been the bout of the season, but it wasn’t to be as the ‘Bonnie Butcher’ of Bothwell Brig had got his comeuppance. It’s strange, though, how the myth of ‘Bonnie Dundee’ survives, despite John Galt’s ‘Ringhan Gilhaize’ and any half decent, non-partisan look at the ‘Killing Times’ and what had gone before.
Regardless of your religious persuasion, surely nobody could look back and justify the merciless hounding and persecution of the Covenanters, most of whom were ordinary folk – the poor peasantry – merely wanting to be left in peace to worship after their conscience. The Covenanters, at a height of fanaticism, decided they should obey their ‘Heavenly King’ rather than King Charles (or King James in turn), but the response of the Privy Council and its dread tribunals, led by the likes of Archbishop Sharp and ‘Bluidy’ Mackenzie, made the ‘Holy Office’ of the Inquisition look quite tame. Scotland was governed by the Committee of Public Affairs whose Acts were barbarically executed by the swords of a thousand men like Sir James Turner and ‘Bonnie Dundee’.
General Mackay had been against sending the Cameronians to Dunkeld, pointing to the bitter animosity between them and the Jacobite Highlanders. Mackay’s opinion was founded on events that occurred soon after the murder of Sharp, when the Council brought to the shires of Lanark and Ayr an army of 10,000 marauding Highlanders. That ‘Highland Host’ neither knew nor cared anything about the quarrel, but was happy to terrorise the western Lowlands, before it retreated homewards with its spoil. As James Kirkton was to write in ‘The secret and true history of the church of Scotland from the Restoration to the year 1678’, “you would have thought by their baggage that they had been at the sack of a besieged city.” To make matters worse, Lieutenant-Colonel Cleland, who was a bit poet in his spare time, had mocked that host in derisive doggerel.
The Cameronians were originally a guerrilla force formed by the fanatical religious reformer and martyr, Richard Cameron, who was killed in a battle at Airsmoss on the 20th of July, 1680. The regiment named in Cameron’s honour was formed on the 14th of May, 1689, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with Clan Cameron, who fought for the Jacobite cause, nor ever should they be confused with the 79th Cameron Highlanders. Under Charles II & II and James VII & II, the Cameronians had been zealous, covenanting outlaws, but under William (III & II) and Mary (II & II), they were “saviours of the (inglorious) Revolution.” You can find a stirring account of the battle between these sworn foes, in Andrew Crichton’s ‘Life of Colonel J. Blackadder’ and in James Browne’s ‘A History of the Highlands and the Highland Clans’.
The Battle of Dunkeld was neither short nor sweet, ending around 11 p.m. with the destruction of all but three of its houses. The battle took place within the town, through the streets and around the Cathedral, which still shows bullet marks in its eastern gable. When the Jacobite horde entered the un-walled town, the outnumbered Cameronians took refuge behind the walls of the cathedral, the Atholl mansion house and adjoining gardens. The Jacobites, numbering as many as 4000 Scots and Irish, also occupied several houses and, denied the scope for their famous Highland Charge, they didn’t take too well to the idea of repeated frontal assaults against the muskets and pikes of entrenched and determined Lowland foes.
Not keen on surrender, when they ran out of ball, the Cameronians resorted to the sacrilege of stripping lead from the roof of the Cathedral to keep up their fire. By that time, Cleland had fallen, shot in the head and the liver within an hour of the first assault, but rather than cause his men despair, he attempted to craw away to die unseen in a neuk of the Cathedral. Major Henderson assumed command, but was killed almost immediately, whereupon Captain Munro was left in charge. Munro it was who resorted to the desperate act of setting the town afire when he sent out a party “with blazing fagots on the ends of long pikes” to set fire to the dry thatch and dislodge the Highlanders. In one house, as Browne reports, as many as sixteen Jacobites perished when “…pikemen had locked the doors of such of the houses as had keys standing in them and the unhappy intruders, being thus cut off from escape, perished in the flames.”
The ‘Bloody Irishes’ as the now blooded Cameronians called the Jacobites, made off after the conflagration, refusing Cannon’s pleas to resume the attack by crying they were ready to fight against men, “but would not fight any more against devils!” The Cameronians’ ‘success’ was founded on stout defence and destroying the town they were sent to defend. Their fatalities are unknown, but were undoubtedly substantial, whilst the Jacobites lost less than three hundred men before they retired to the sound of singing – psalms of praise.
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Dudley Dexter Watkins
Dudley Dexter Watkins, cartoonist and illustrator died on the 20th of August, 1969.
With a name like Dudley Dexter Watkins, you’d be forgiven for thinking such a man would hardly be Scottish, and you’re right. Dudley was an Englishman, but he earned the right to be an honorary Scotsman. You see, Our Dudley was the man who drew the comic strips featuring a’body’s favourites, ‘Oor Wullie’ and ‘The Broons’. How could Scotland fail to honour the man who helped to create the timeless characters that have adorned the fun section of ‘The Sunday Post’ since 1936? Along with writer and editor, Robert Duncan Low, Dudley Dexter Watkins gave to Scotland and the World yet another nine years old boy who never grows up – Oor Wullie of the spiky hair and dungarees, with his ever present, upturned bucket and his friends, Fat Bob and Soapy Soutar. It’s to Low that we maun gie credit for the Scots vernacular of the strips, set in the fictional town of Auchenshoogle, but Oor Wullie’s timeless exclamations of “Jings!” “Crivvens!” and “Help ma Boab!” were undoubtedly brought to glorious immortality by Dudley Dexter Watkins.
Dudley D. Watkins is rightly regarded as one of the handful of truly great comic strip artists. His brilliance, from the days when nobody gave a hoot about political correctness, gave us characters such as ‘Desperate Dan’ (scoffing cow pie), ‘Lord Snooty’, ‘Korky the Cat’, ‘Biffo the Bear’, ‘Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks’, ‘Peter Pye’ (a humorous Medieval strip), and ‘Ginger’ (his final comic creation), from the ‘Beano’, ‘Dandy’, ‘Topper’ and ‘Beezer’. Watkins also created a host of other characters in finely drawn adventure strips, including ‘Lone Wolf’ (a masked avenger along the lines of the Lone Ranger), ‘Morgyn the Mighty’ and ‘Jimmy and His Magic Patch’ (a blend of reality and legend). An extract from the ‘Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture’ hardly does him justice in stating, “Beneath [Watkins’] simplification lay a confident draughtsmanship, a capacity for effective compositions and a profound instinct for well-selected detail.”
It has been suggested that Dudley Watkins was the only D. C. Thomson artist permitted to sign his work, however, that appears to be a bit of a myth. Watkins’ name or initials began to appear on ‘The Broons’ and ‘Oor Wullie’ in June of 1946, reputedly after he was approached by a rival publisher. Permission to sign his work was one of the conditions Watkins negotiated in staying loyal to the Dundee publisher and he continued to sign most of his work for the rest of his life. In fact, Watkins was one of only two D. C. Thomson cartoonists who signed their work; the other being Allan Morley and it was Morley, apparently, who was the first to do so.
Dudley Dexter Watkins was born in Manchester on the 27th of February, 1907, although the family moved to Nottingham while he was still a baby. Young Dudley’s artistic talent was noticed at an early stage as by the age of ten, he had been described by the local education authority as, “an artistic genius for his age.” The young genius then went on to study at the Nottingham School of Art. Later on, when he worked for Boots the Chemist, Watkins’ first published artwork, a drawing entitled ‘Our Gymnasium Class’, appeared in their staff magazine, ‘The Beacon’, in 1923. A year later, Watkins and his family moved to Scotland, where Dudley attended more art classes, as a student at the Glasgow School of Art, where we can claim (“Yeah?”) that he refined his talents and began to develop his unique style.
In 1925, Watkins arrived in Dundee, the home of D. C. Thomson, after the Principle of the school in Glasgow recommended him to a representative of the then thriving Scottish publishing firm. Watkins was first offered a mere six-months employment, but ended up with a full time career, working with D. C. Thomson for the rest of his life. For the first ten years, Watkins worked as a draughtsman and illustrator, supplementing his modest wage by teaching life drawing at the School of Art in Dundee. However, his cartoonist talents were ultimately recognised and, from 1933, Watkins turned his hand to comic strip work and began providing illustrations for Thomson’s ‘Big Five’ story papers for boys; namely, ‘Adventure’, ‘Rover’, ‘Wizard’, ‘Skipper’ and ‘Hotspur’.
Watkins spent the Second World War with the Fife-based Dad’s Army of the Home Guard. During that time, he produced a huge amount of cartoon strips, which were specifically designed to bolster morale on the Home front. The themes of digging for victory and such like, included vivid strips full of bomb shelters, Spitfires, ‘Conchies’ and patriotic bashing of the ‘Krauts’.
Watkins never made a great deal of money from his talent, having effectively signed away a fortune in potential syndication rights to his employers, but he was paid well enough to be able to build a substantial house in Broughty Ferry. Much of his life was lived in modest privacy at that house in Reres Road, which he named ‘Winsterley’. In later years, Watkins himself became modest to the point of almost being a recluse. Neighbours and colleagues rarely caught sight of him as he began to work exclusively from home. Scripts and drawings were exchanged and delivered by the Editor of ‘The Dandy’ visiting late at night on many an occasion. Apart from being a private man, Watkins, who had been brought up in a strict Baptist household, was also deeply religious. He and his wife Doris, whom he met as a member of the Church of Christ in Dundee, used to make trips to the Holy Land where Watkins could discuss the Gospels, on which he could reputedly discourse for hours.
Dudley Dexter Watkins died of a heart attack on the 20th of August, 1969. Appropriately enough, he was found dead at his beloved drawing board and it is a testament to Watkins’ work that D. C. Thomson continued to reprint 'Oor Wullie' and 'The Broons' strips in The Sunday Post for seven years before a replacement was found. Interestingly, Watkins is said to have produced his best black and white cartoons at breakneck speed, but reportedly spent ages lingering over his watercolour easel paintings, which were “persistently awful.” Norman Wright and David Ashford penned a tribute to Watkins that appeared in issue number 211 of 'Book and Magazine Collector', in which they wrote, “In the forty four years [Watkins] had worked for D.C.Thomson he had created some of their most memorable characters. His output was prodigious, yet the quality of his work was always impeccable.”
With a name like Dudley Dexter Watkins, you’d be forgiven for thinking such a man would hardly be Scottish, and you’re right. Dudley was an Englishman, but he earned the right to be an honorary Scotsman. You see, Our Dudley was the man who drew the comic strips featuring a’body’s favourites, ‘Oor Wullie’ and ‘The Broons’. How could Scotland fail to honour the man who helped to create the timeless characters that have adorned the fun section of ‘The Sunday Post’ since 1936? Along with writer and editor, Robert Duncan Low, Dudley Dexter Watkins gave to Scotland and the World yet another nine years old boy who never grows up – Oor Wullie of the spiky hair and dungarees, with his ever present, upturned bucket and his friends, Fat Bob and Soapy Soutar. It’s to Low that we maun gie credit for the Scots vernacular of the strips, set in the fictional town of Auchenshoogle, but Oor Wullie’s timeless exclamations of “Jings!” “Crivvens!” and “Help ma Boab!” were undoubtedly brought to glorious immortality by Dudley Dexter Watkins.
Dudley D. Watkins is rightly regarded as one of the handful of truly great comic strip artists. His brilliance, from the days when nobody gave a hoot about political correctness, gave us characters such as ‘Desperate Dan’ (scoffing cow pie), ‘Lord Snooty’, ‘Korky the Cat’, ‘Biffo the Bear’, ‘Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks’, ‘Peter Pye’ (a humorous Medieval strip), and ‘Ginger’ (his final comic creation), from the ‘Beano’, ‘Dandy’, ‘Topper’ and ‘Beezer’. Watkins also created a host of other characters in finely drawn adventure strips, including ‘Lone Wolf’ (a masked avenger along the lines of the Lone Ranger), ‘Morgyn the Mighty’ and ‘Jimmy and His Magic Patch’ (a blend of reality and legend). An extract from the ‘Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture’ hardly does him justice in stating, “Beneath [Watkins’] simplification lay a confident draughtsmanship, a capacity for effective compositions and a profound instinct for well-selected detail.”
It has been suggested that Dudley Watkins was the only D. C. Thomson artist permitted to sign his work, however, that appears to be a bit of a myth. Watkins’ name or initials began to appear on ‘The Broons’ and ‘Oor Wullie’ in June of 1946, reputedly after he was approached by a rival publisher. Permission to sign his work was one of the conditions Watkins negotiated in staying loyal to the Dundee publisher and he continued to sign most of his work for the rest of his life. In fact, Watkins was one of only two D. C. Thomson cartoonists who signed their work; the other being Allan Morley and it was Morley, apparently, who was the first to do so.
Dudley Dexter Watkins was born in Manchester on the 27th of February, 1907, although the family moved to Nottingham while he was still a baby. Young Dudley’s artistic talent was noticed at an early stage as by the age of ten, he had been described by the local education authority as, “an artistic genius for his age.” The young genius then went on to study at the Nottingham School of Art. Later on, when he worked for Boots the Chemist, Watkins’ first published artwork, a drawing entitled ‘Our Gymnasium Class’, appeared in their staff magazine, ‘The Beacon’, in 1923. A year later, Watkins and his family moved to Scotland, where Dudley attended more art classes, as a student at the Glasgow School of Art, where we can claim (“Yeah?”) that he refined his talents and began to develop his unique style.
In 1925, Watkins arrived in Dundee, the home of D. C. Thomson, after the Principle of the school in Glasgow recommended him to a representative of the then thriving Scottish publishing firm. Watkins was first offered a mere six-months employment, but ended up with a full time career, working with D. C. Thomson for the rest of his life. For the first ten years, Watkins worked as a draughtsman and illustrator, supplementing his modest wage by teaching life drawing at the School of Art in Dundee. However, his cartoonist talents were ultimately recognised and, from 1933, Watkins turned his hand to comic strip work and began providing illustrations for Thomson’s ‘Big Five’ story papers for boys; namely, ‘Adventure’, ‘Rover’, ‘Wizard’, ‘Skipper’ and ‘Hotspur’.
Watkins spent the Second World War with the Fife-based Dad’s Army of the Home Guard. During that time, he produced a huge amount of cartoon strips, which were specifically designed to bolster morale on the Home front. The themes of digging for victory and such like, included vivid strips full of bomb shelters, Spitfires, ‘Conchies’ and patriotic bashing of the ‘Krauts’.
Watkins never made a great deal of money from his talent, having effectively signed away a fortune in potential syndication rights to his employers, but he was paid well enough to be able to build a substantial house in Broughty Ferry. Much of his life was lived in modest privacy at that house in Reres Road, which he named ‘Winsterley’. In later years, Watkins himself became modest to the point of almost being a recluse. Neighbours and colleagues rarely caught sight of him as he began to work exclusively from home. Scripts and drawings were exchanged and delivered by the Editor of ‘The Dandy’ visiting late at night on many an occasion. Apart from being a private man, Watkins, who had been brought up in a strict Baptist household, was also deeply religious. He and his wife Doris, whom he met as a member of the Church of Christ in Dundee, used to make trips to the Holy Land where Watkins could discuss the Gospels, on which he could reputedly discourse for hours.
Dudley Dexter Watkins died of a heart attack on the 20th of August, 1969. Appropriately enough, he was found dead at his beloved drawing board and it is a testament to Watkins’ work that D. C. Thomson continued to reprint 'Oor Wullie' and 'The Broons' strips in The Sunday Post for seven years before a replacement was found. Interestingly, Watkins is said to have produced his best black and white cartoons at breakneck speed, but reportedly spent ages lingering over his watercolour easel paintings, which were “persistently awful.” Norman Wright and David Ashford penned a tribute to Watkins that appeared in issue number 211 of 'Book and Magazine Collector', in which they wrote, “In the forty four years [Watkins] had worked for D.C.Thomson he had created some of their most memorable characters. His output was prodigious, yet the quality of his work was always impeccable.”
Friday, 19 August 2011
George Alexander Pirie
Dr. George Alexander Pirie, a pioneer in the application of X-rays, was born on the 19th of August, 1863.
The history of medicine in Scotland is an inspiring story of visionaries and selfless, dedicated people. From the eccentric 18th Century explorer, Mungo Park, through innovative surgeons, such as Joseph, Lord Lister and Sir James Young Simpson, to medical scientists like Sir Alexander Fleming, Scotland has a long list of medical pioneers of whom it is rightly proud. In that pantheon of medical heroes and heroines, none can have made as unselfish a contribution as Dundee’s Dr. George Alexander Pirie.
Dr. George Pirie was a pioneer of the clinical application of X-rays, having started his investigations and experiments at Dundee Royal Infirmary within months of the discovery of the existence of X-rays, a scientific breakthrough that had been achieved in November, 1895, by the German, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. Physicians and surgeons were quick to realise the potential of X-rays and by the end of 1896, the infirmaries of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee were all developing its clinical use. Based at Dundee, Dr. Pirie was one of the first doctors in the world to use X-rays in the field of medicine, obtaining very clear X-ray images in early 1896. Pirie continued his experiments right up until 1925, but the tragic reward for his dedication came when he was forced to retire due to ill-health, brought about by prolonged exposure to X-ray radiation.
In those early days, a cryptoscope (or fluoroscope) was used to test the quality of X-rays. Investigators such as Pirie used to hold a hand between the X-ray tube and the fluorescent screen on the cryptoscope to check how sharp and clear the image was. Unfortunately, a price had to be paid and Dr. Pirie was no exception. In 1905, after 10 years of almost daily exposure to primitive X-rays, Pirie’s eyesight started to fail and he began to develop the characteristic tumours in his hands. Intriguingly, when his hands “began to give me trouble” as he called it, Pirie used mustard oil to try to relieve the pain caused by his experiments. With wry humour, he described the skin on his hands having “cracked open” and the “amusement” of his colleagues when they saw him “going about with sticking plaster all over [his hands].”
The darker truth of his plight comes across rather more poignantly, when he wrote, “Sometimes I would waken at night and find [my hands] tingling like fire.” Pirie was urged to give up his X-ray work and restrict his activities to superintending others, but he steadfastly refused, stating, “I could never bring myself to cause others to take a risk that I would not take myself.” Once the danger of exposure to X-rays was realised, early forms of protection included a lead-lined mask with glass goggles.
Unfortunately, such innovations came too late for Pirie, who, by the time he was forced to retire, had lost one eye and most of the sight from his other. Pirie’s personal agony didn’t stop there as he had also lost his right hand and the thumb and part of the fifth finger of his other hand when he was told that “nothing could be done” and he was forced to endure the amputation of his left. Speaking of his infirmities, he was to say, “I like to draw a veil over those days.” Pirie’s left hand is preserved in the Pathology department at Ninewells Hospital & Medical School in Dundee.
George Alexander Pirie was born in Dundee on the 19th of August, 1863. Around 1883, Pirie graduated with an M.A. from the University of St. Andrews where he also studied Greek classics. It is said that he was a “fluent Greek scholar” – I guess that means he could speak ancient Greek or at least decipher the odd hieroglyph. In 1886, Pirie obtained an MBCM with first class honours, from Edinburgh, and he gained his M.D. in 1890. George Alexander came from a long line of Piries associated with Dundee Royal Infirmary. George Alexander’s father, Dr. George Clark Pirie, was a physician there, from 1862 to 1881, and a cousin, Dr. David Greig, was one of the founders of the Forfarshire Medical Association.
Pirie’s contribution to medical science was duly recognised, but back in 1896, the prevailing public view of X-rays is summed up in a wee extract from the ‘London Pall Mall Gazette’ – “You can see other people’s bones with the naked eye… On the revolting indecency of this there is no need to dwell.” However, in 1926, when he was no longer able to continue working, Pirie was awarded a Civil List pension and presented with a Carnegie Hero Trust medal and pension. The grateful citizens of his home town of Dundee also presented him with an award of £1,120, which was raised by subscription in recognition of his unique services.
Later, in 1936, long after Pirie had died, a memorial was erected in Hamburg, the home of Roentgen, in honour of the pioneers of X-rays, many of whom had suffered injury or even lost their lives due to their ground-breaking experiments. Of the original 169 names from 15 nations inscribed on the memorial, six are from Scotland, including Dr. George Alexander Pirie.
Those other Scottish heroes are William Ironside Bruce, from Aberdeen, William Hope Fowler, John Webster Lowson Spence and Dawson Turner, all from Edinburgh, and James Riddell from Glasgow.
The citation on the Hamburg Memorial to Pirie, and his colleagues and peers from around the world, reads, “They were heroic pioneers for a safe and successful application of X-rays to medicine. The fame of their deeds is immortal.”
George Alexander Pirie died in October, 1929.
The history of medicine in Scotland is an inspiring story of visionaries and selfless, dedicated people. From the eccentric 18th Century explorer, Mungo Park, through innovative surgeons, such as Joseph, Lord Lister and Sir James Young Simpson, to medical scientists like Sir Alexander Fleming, Scotland has a long list of medical pioneers of whom it is rightly proud. In that pantheon of medical heroes and heroines, none can have made as unselfish a contribution as Dundee’s Dr. George Alexander Pirie.
Dr. George Pirie was a pioneer of the clinical application of X-rays, having started his investigations and experiments at Dundee Royal Infirmary within months of the discovery of the existence of X-rays, a scientific breakthrough that had been achieved in November, 1895, by the German, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. Physicians and surgeons were quick to realise the potential of X-rays and by the end of 1896, the infirmaries of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee were all developing its clinical use. Based at Dundee, Dr. Pirie was one of the first doctors in the world to use X-rays in the field of medicine, obtaining very clear X-ray images in early 1896. Pirie continued his experiments right up until 1925, but the tragic reward for his dedication came when he was forced to retire due to ill-health, brought about by prolonged exposure to X-ray radiation.
In those early days, a cryptoscope (or fluoroscope) was used to test the quality of X-rays. Investigators such as Pirie used to hold a hand between the X-ray tube and the fluorescent screen on the cryptoscope to check how sharp and clear the image was. Unfortunately, a price had to be paid and Dr. Pirie was no exception. In 1905, after 10 years of almost daily exposure to primitive X-rays, Pirie’s eyesight started to fail and he began to develop the characteristic tumours in his hands. Intriguingly, when his hands “began to give me trouble” as he called it, Pirie used mustard oil to try to relieve the pain caused by his experiments. With wry humour, he described the skin on his hands having “cracked open” and the “amusement” of his colleagues when they saw him “going about with sticking plaster all over [his hands].”
The darker truth of his plight comes across rather more poignantly, when he wrote, “Sometimes I would waken at night and find [my hands] tingling like fire.” Pirie was urged to give up his X-ray work and restrict his activities to superintending others, but he steadfastly refused, stating, “I could never bring myself to cause others to take a risk that I would not take myself.” Once the danger of exposure to X-rays was realised, early forms of protection included a lead-lined mask with glass goggles.
Unfortunately, such innovations came too late for Pirie, who, by the time he was forced to retire, had lost one eye and most of the sight from his other. Pirie’s personal agony didn’t stop there as he had also lost his right hand and the thumb and part of the fifth finger of his other hand when he was told that “nothing could be done” and he was forced to endure the amputation of his left. Speaking of his infirmities, he was to say, “I like to draw a veil over those days.” Pirie’s left hand is preserved in the Pathology department at Ninewells Hospital & Medical School in Dundee.
George Alexander Pirie was born in Dundee on the 19th of August, 1863. Around 1883, Pirie graduated with an M.A. from the University of St. Andrews where he also studied Greek classics. It is said that he was a “fluent Greek scholar” – I guess that means he could speak ancient Greek or at least decipher the odd hieroglyph. In 1886, Pirie obtained an MBCM with first class honours, from Edinburgh, and he gained his M.D. in 1890. George Alexander came from a long line of Piries associated with Dundee Royal Infirmary. George Alexander’s father, Dr. George Clark Pirie, was a physician there, from 1862 to 1881, and a cousin, Dr. David Greig, was one of the founders of the Forfarshire Medical Association.
Pirie’s contribution to medical science was duly recognised, but back in 1896, the prevailing public view of X-rays is summed up in a wee extract from the ‘London Pall Mall Gazette’ – “You can see other people’s bones with the naked eye… On the revolting indecency of this there is no need to dwell.” However, in 1926, when he was no longer able to continue working, Pirie was awarded a Civil List pension and presented with a Carnegie Hero Trust medal and pension. The grateful citizens of his home town of Dundee also presented him with an award of £1,120, which was raised by subscription in recognition of his unique services.
Later, in 1936, long after Pirie had died, a memorial was erected in Hamburg, the home of Roentgen, in honour of the pioneers of X-rays, many of whom had suffered injury or even lost their lives due to their ground-breaking experiments. Of the original 169 names from 15 nations inscribed on the memorial, six are from Scotland, including Dr. George Alexander Pirie.
Those other Scottish heroes are William Ironside Bruce, from Aberdeen, William Hope Fowler, John Webster Lowson Spence and Dawson Turner, all from Edinburgh, and James Riddell from Glasgow.
The citation on the Hamburg Memorial to Pirie, and his colleagues and peers from around the world, reads, “They were heroic pioneers for a safe and successful application of X-rays to medicine. The fame of their deeds is immortal.”
George Alexander Pirie died in October, 1929.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
The Earlsferry fishing fleet disaster
The entire Earlsferry fishing fleet was devastated off Dunbar on the 17th of August, 1579.
For centuries, making a livelihood from driftnet fishing in the North Sea, off the East Neuk of Fife and the Dunbar coast, had been commonplace. In the summer, from August until the end of September, it was herring fishing, when catches were gutted and packed in barrels, and sent to Europe or the West Indies. In the winter months, local fishermen fished for cod and whiting, and shellfish, such as crabs and lobsters. However, long before the 19th Century, when the herring industry took off, encouraged by the British Fisheries Society and the newly formed Board of Fisheries, such an occupation, to all intents and purposes, had ceased to be practiced out of one coastal village in Fife.
That wee township was Earlsferry and it wasn’t because the fisher folk had become lazy or lost their sea legs, or even their appetite for fish. It was largely because of a series of maritime disasters over two centuries that devastated the wee community; events from which its fishermen never fully recovered. Fishing always had been a dangerous occupation and risk taking wasn’t uncommon when there was a catch to be had, but for the most part, those risks had much to do with the weather. Whatever motives persuaded the men to venture out in storms and tempests, it looks like the weather forecasting instincts of hardened seafarers, such as indubitably they were, sometimes deserted them.
A story found in prose and verse tells us about a storm at sea that sank the entire fleet of Earlsferry fishing boats on the 17th of August, 1579. The fishing fleet, which was lashed by hurricane force winds south of the Forth Estuary, numbered all of 60 boats and all of the fishermen – in the region of 300 men (five to a boat) – were said to have drowned. The next generation growing up in Earlsferry, without their fathers to inspire them with tales of the sea, could be forgiven for having doubts over fishing as a career. Over time, potatoes replaced herring and salt as the main export from wee harbour villages like Earlsferry. Don’t forget that those two-masted fishing boats, locally known as ‘fifies’, didn’t have outboard motors or diesel engines; they had only sails and oars to drive them through the water. Being a landlubber wasn’t so bad, after all, you might say.
There is a report of the Earlsferry tragedy in ‘The Kingdom: a descriptive and historical handbook to Fife, with map and illustrations’ edited by ‘Kilrounie’ [John J. Russell] and first published at Cupar, in 1882. An extract from the book records that the fishing industry suffered a severe blow and “…during a fearful storm all the boats of Earlsferry were lost and the whole fishing population perished.” It refers to a record of a storm that occurred on the 17th of August, 1579 “…when 60 fishing boats foundered near Dunbar.” The same 1579 incident is also mentioned in ‘The East Neuk of Fife’ by the Reverend W. Wood, in which he refers to the tradition of the storm: “…in a fearful storm, the whole boats of Earlsferry were lost, and the whole fishing population perished.”
There is another record in verse that probably refers or relates to the same event, however, it is not so exact as to the month or day and it has the year two years prior to the date in Kilrounie’s history. Maybe that’s poetic licence. Fishermen have always faced dangers at sea, with disasters and drownings an accepted part of life in their towns and villages. It’s not surprising, then, that some of the earliest recorded disasters have become the stuff of legend. The poem in question is known as ‘The Luckless Drave’ or ‘The Legend of the Lost Drave’ and it tells of “a thousand boats” being wrecked off the coast of Dunbar in 1577. References to the poem indicate that it was the Dunbar fishing community – and not that of Earlsferry on the other side of the Firth of Forth estuary – that was devastated by the storm that wrecked its fleet.
In a ‘Drave’, shares in a boat were divided between two or three fishermen and five or six landsmen, one of whom was the proprietor as landsmen at the time built and equipped fishing boats “in the way of adventurers.” At the end of the season, after expenses, the net [sic] profit was divided into a number of ‘deals’. The owner got one deal, every fisherman drew half a deal, every two nets (each fisherman had at least two nets) had half a deal, and every landsman that was capable of working two nets got half a deal.
Reputedly, in 1577, Dunbar was one of only two ‘ungodly’ places on the East Coast where the North Sea fishermen fished on the Sabbath. On the fatal day, described in the poem as “a beautiful Sunday morning” the boats had put to sea, despite the warnings of the local Minister, Andrew Simpson. In a tome called ‘The History of Dunbar from the earliest records to the present period; with a description of the Ancient Castles and Picturesque Scenery on the borders of East Lothian’ by James Miller (author of St. Baldred of the Bass) and published in 1830 by William Miller of Dunbar, there is further reference to 1577, “…when 1000 boats were wrecked on the coast.”
That James Miller book records an extract from the Session Records of the 27th of July, 1712, when the Reverend T. Wood of Dunbar read a minute left by his predecessors, which mentions “the dreadful disaster” that had fallen upon “the people of this place” for breaking the Lord’s Day. Quote: “Mr Simpson, minister of Dalkeith, son to Mr Andrew Simpson, minister at Dunbar, in his exposition of the XXXII Psalm, hath these words: A fearfull judgement of God fell furth at Dunbar, about the year of God 1577, qrof I was an eyewitness. My father, Mr Andrew Simpson, of good memory, being minister thereof, qho, going to the church, saw a thousand boats setting their netts on the Sabbath-day. He wept and feared that God would not suffer such contempt. …at midnight, when they went forth to draw their netts, the wind arose so fearfully, that it drowned eight score and ten boats, so that there was reckoned in the coast-side fourteen score of widows.”
You can find some image records of the poem on Scran, the online image resource base. They show the title page or front cover of what’s called, variously, ‘The Luckless Drave’, ‘The Lost Drave, a Legend of Dunbar’ or ‘The Legend of the Lost Drave’. One image is of a 17th Century drawing that shows fishing boats in a storm, with witches on broomsticks flying above. Witches were popularly unpopular in the 17th Century. You could attempt a poem about the fateful Drave of ’77, perhaps in the style of William Topaz McGonagall? Here’s a start…
“Tragic Fishing Fleet of the Dunbar Bay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
Thousands of lives have been taken away
On a holy Sabbath day in 1577,
Which will be remember’d as a time of grievin’.”
Of course, neither Dunbar nor Earlsferry were unique in their grief. In ‘The Kingdom’ there is the tale of another fearful storm, which raged in 1863 and sank 36 fishing boats from the East of Fife “and all of the men aboard were drowned.” Its editor also includes the story of the Eyemouth Disaster, which occurred on what is known as ‘Black Friday’. That dire date was the 14th of October, 1881, when ‘The Great Storm’ took the lives of fishermen; in that case, 189, with 129 of them coming from the one town – Eyemouth. According to ‘The East Neuk of Fife’, seven fishermen out of Earlsferry were drowned in one boat during a tempest in 1776. Wood also records that it was since that time that Earlsferry “ceased to be a fishing place” not least, because the harbour was completely filled with blown sand. It’s still worth a visit though, especially if you like ‘gowf’ or fancy a day on the beach. Or you might visit Macduff’s Cave at Kincraig Point, near Chapel-Ness, and imagine him fleeing from Macbeth.
For centuries, making a livelihood from driftnet fishing in the North Sea, off the East Neuk of Fife and the Dunbar coast, had been commonplace. In the summer, from August until the end of September, it was herring fishing, when catches were gutted and packed in barrels, and sent to Europe or the West Indies. In the winter months, local fishermen fished for cod and whiting, and shellfish, such as crabs and lobsters. However, long before the 19th Century, when the herring industry took off, encouraged by the British Fisheries Society and the newly formed Board of Fisheries, such an occupation, to all intents and purposes, had ceased to be practiced out of one coastal village in Fife.
That wee township was Earlsferry and it wasn’t because the fisher folk had become lazy or lost their sea legs, or even their appetite for fish. It was largely because of a series of maritime disasters over two centuries that devastated the wee community; events from which its fishermen never fully recovered. Fishing always had been a dangerous occupation and risk taking wasn’t uncommon when there was a catch to be had, but for the most part, those risks had much to do with the weather. Whatever motives persuaded the men to venture out in storms and tempests, it looks like the weather forecasting instincts of hardened seafarers, such as indubitably they were, sometimes deserted them.
A story found in prose and verse tells us about a storm at sea that sank the entire fleet of Earlsferry fishing boats on the 17th of August, 1579. The fishing fleet, which was lashed by hurricane force winds south of the Forth Estuary, numbered all of 60 boats and all of the fishermen – in the region of 300 men (five to a boat) – were said to have drowned. The next generation growing up in Earlsferry, without their fathers to inspire them with tales of the sea, could be forgiven for having doubts over fishing as a career. Over time, potatoes replaced herring and salt as the main export from wee harbour villages like Earlsferry. Don’t forget that those two-masted fishing boats, locally known as ‘fifies’, didn’t have outboard motors or diesel engines; they had only sails and oars to drive them through the water. Being a landlubber wasn’t so bad, after all, you might say.
There is a report of the Earlsferry tragedy in ‘The Kingdom: a descriptive and historical handbook to Fife, with map and illustrations’ edited by ‘Kilrounie’ [John J. Russell] and first published at Cupar, in 1882. An extract from the book records that the fishing industry suffered a severe blow and “…during a fearful storm all the boats of Earlsferry were lost and the whole fishing population perished.” It refers to a record of a storm that occurred on the 17th of August, 1579 “…when 60 fishing boats foundered near Dunbar.” The same 1579 incident is also mentioned in ‘The East Neuk of Fife’ by the Reverend W. Wood, in which he refers to the tradition of the storm: “…in a fearful storm, the whole boats of Earlsferry were lost, and the whole fishing population perished.”
There is another record in verse that probably refers or relates to the same event, however, it is not so exact as to the month or day and it has the year two years prior to the date in Kilrounie’s history. Maybe that’s poetic licence. Fishermen have always faced dangers at sea, with disasters and drownings an accepted part of life in their towns and villages. It’s not surprising, then, that some of the earliest recorded disasters have become the stuff of legend. The poem in question is known as ‘The Luckless Drave’ or ‘The Legend of the Lost Drave’ and it tells of “a thousand boats” being wrecked off the coast of Dunbar in 1577. References to the poem indicate that it was the Dunbar fishing community – and not that of Earlsferry on the other side of the Firth of Forth estuary – that was devastated by the storm that wrecked its fleet.
In a ‘Drave’, shares in a boat were divided between two or three fishermen and five or six landsmen, one of whom was the proprietor as landsmen at the time built and equipped fishing boats “in the way of adventurers.” At the end of the season, after expenses, the net [sic] profit was divided into a number of ‘deals’. The owner got one deal, every fisherman drew half a deal, every two nets (each fisherman had at least two nets) had half a deal, and every landsman that was capable of working two nets got half a deal.
Reputedly, in 1577, Dunbar was one of only two ‘ungodly’ places on the East Coast where the North Sea fishermen fished on the Sabbath. On the fatal day, described in the poem as “a beautiful Sunday morning” the boats had put to sea, despite the warnings of the local Minister, Andrew Simpson. In a tome called ‘The History of Dunbar from the earliest records to the present period; with a description of the Ancient Castles and Picturesque Scenery on the borders of East Lothian’ by James Miller (author of St. Baldred of the Bass) and published in 1830 by William Miller of Dunbar, there is further reference to 1577, “…when 1000 boats were wrecked on the coast.”
That James Miller book records an extract from the Session Records of the 27th of July, 1712, when the Reverend T. Wood of Dunbar read a minute left by his predecessors, which mentions “the dreadful disaster” that had fallen upon “the people of this place” for breaking the Lord’s Day. Quote: “Mr Simpson, minister of Dalkeith, son to Mr Andrew Simpson, minister at Dunbar, in his exposition of the XXXII Psalm, hath these words: A fearfull judgement of God fell furth at Dunbar, about the year of God 1577, qrof I was an eyewitness. My father, Mr Andrew Simpson, of good memory, being minister thereof, qho, going to the church, saw a thousand boats setting their netts on the Sabbath-day. He wept and feared that God would not suffer such contempt. …at midnight, when they went forth to draw their netts, the wind arose so fearfully, that it drowned eight score and ten boats, so that there was reckoned in the coast-side fourteen score of widows.”
You can find some image records of the poem on Scran, the online image resource base. They show the title page or front cover of what’s called, variously, ‘The Luckless Drave’, ‘The Lost Drave, a Legend of Dunbar’ or ‘The Legend of the Lost Drave’. One image is of a 17th Century drawing that shows fishing boats in a storm, with witches on broomsticks flying above. Witches were popularly unpopular in the 17th Century. You could attempt a poem about the fateful Drave of ’77, perhaps in the style of William Topaz McGonagall? Here’s a start…
“Tragic Fishing Fleet of the Dunbar Bay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
Thousands of lives have been taken away
On a holy Sabbath day in 1577,
Which will be remember’d as a time of grievin’.”
Of course, neither Dunbar nor Earlsferry were unique in their grief. In ‘The Kingdom’ there is the tale of another fearful storm, which raged in 1863 and sank 36 fishing boats from the East of Fife “and all of the men aboard were drowned.” Its editor also includes the story of the Eyemouth Disaster, which occurred on what is known as ‘Black Friday’. That dire date was the 14th of October, 1881, when ‘The Great Storm’ took the lives of fishermen; in that case, 189, with 129 of them coming from the one town – Eyemouth. According to ‘The East Neuk of Fife’, seven fishermen out of Earlsferry were drowned in one boat during a tempest in 1776. Wood also records that it was since that time that Earlsferry “ceased to be a fishing place” not least, because the harbour was completely filled with blown sand. It’s still worth a visit though, especially if you like ‘gowf’ or fancy a day on the beach. Or you might visit Macduff’s Cave at Kincraig Point, near Chapel-Ness, and imagine him fleeing from Macbeth.
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Lady Carolina Oliphant (Baroness Nairne)
Carolina Oliphant, Baroness Nairne, songwriter and song collector, was born on the 16th of August, 1766.
Lady Carolina Nairne or Carolina Oliphant, Baroness Nairne, was a secret poet and songwriter whose work is almost as unknown today as it remained unattributed during her life. She is perhaps, Scotland’s best kept secret. She was good at keeping secrets, hiding her song writing talents from everyone, including her husband. Her works were published, but under the pseudonym of ‘B.B.’ and mainly because it was not socially acceptable at that time, the late 18th Century, for ladies to write poetry. Her family were Jacobites and went through some harsh times as a result of their loyalty to Bonnie Prince Charlie. As a result, Carolina was inspired to write spirited poems, many of which were later turned into stirring Jacobean anthems.
Famous examples, known to many throughout the world, include: ‘Charlie is my darling’; ‘The Hundred Pipers’; and the emotive ‘Bonnie Charlie's noo awa’. Now, hands up those who thought Robert Burns or Sir Walter Scott wrote those songs.
Lady Nairne’s work was widely praised for its vivacity and eloquent style, and her songs were – are – second only to those of Burns himself in popularity. She deserves recognition alongside her male contemporaries; of that there’s no doubt. Lady Nairne was also a collector of songs and her legacy is important, because she wrote or adapted nearly one hundred songs and poems, and added contemporary lyrics to many popular Scottish melodies in the process. By so doing, she helped to preserve much of Scotland's musical heritage, which would otherwise have been lost. After she died, her sister published a posthumous collection of Carolina's work, entitled ‘Lays of Strathearn’. That collection marked the first time that Carolina, Lady Nairne, was publicly identified as the author of the eighty-seven poems and songs it contained.
Carolina Oliphant was born on the 16th of August, 1766, at Gask House, near Dunning in Perthshire. Her father was a fierce supporter of the Jacobite movement who went into exile for a while after the Battle of Culloden and her mother’s family forfeited their lands at that time for the same reason. Carolina was named after the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie so, with that background, it’s perhaps not surprising that many of her songs were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. She had three sisters and two brothers, and was fortunate enough to have a father who was a progressive thinker, for his time. He believed in providing an education for girls as well as boys, which was certainly unusual for the time. Her lessons provided opportunity and motivation with which she began to write poetry, mimicking the lyrics of traditional country songs, but improving upon their crude style in her own fashion and for them to be suitable to ‘society folk’.
Carolina gave a strong Jacobean slant to some of these poems as a means of helping to keep up the spirits of her ailing father and her uncle, who was Clan Chief of the Robertsons of Struan. Here we are, hundred of years later, and still many people, whether or not they have nostalgic Jacobite sympathies, find something of cheer, or something that strikes a personal chord, in her songs. In her younger years, Carolina was pretty and energetic, and had a liking for dancing. At school, she was known as ‘pretty Miss Car’, and in adult circles, her striking beauty and pleasing manners earned her the name ‘Flower of Strathearn’. She was a contemporary of Niel Gow, the famous fiddler, who put some of her best loved songs to music; now, there’s a combination to whet the appetite. Some of the popular melodies she adapted in those early days are preserved in songs such as, ‘The Laird o' Cockpen’, and ‘The Pleughman’.
When she was forty-one years old, Carolina Oliphant married her second cousin, Major William Murray Nairne, on the 2nd of June, 1806. In 1824, following George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822 and Sir Walter Scott's endless petitioning, Parliament restored the forfeited Jacobite peerages and Major Nairne was restored to the Barony of Nairne. Thereafter, Carolina became Baroness or Lady Nairne. However, prior to that and after getting married, the couple moved to Edinburgh, which was where she became involved in her lifelong project to preserve and foster the songs of Scotland. In those days, it was not considered proper for society ladies to dabble in what she herself called “this queer trade of song-writing.” Nevertheless, she set about following the example of Burns in the ‘Scots Musical Museum’.
Lady Nairne aimed to bring out a collection of national airs, set to appropriate words, to which she also contributed a large number of original songs under the pseudonym ‘B. B.’ or ‘Mrs Bogan of Bogan’. That nom-de-plume was in order to keep her poetry and songwriting secret from her husband, friends and relatives. She even went as far as to try to keep her true identity secret from the collection's editor, R. A. Smith. When she went to visit him, she used to wear an old, veiled cloak, in the hope that she wouldn’t be recognised. Her work appeared as part of a major collection published by Robert Purdie in Edinburgh between 1821 and 1824, and under the title of ‘The Scottish Minstrel’. Her own song ‘Caller Herring’, which was written to an air created by Neil Gow, is an excellent example of her genuine compassion and understanding of pathos.
Wha'll buy my caller herrin'?
They're bonnie fish and halesome farin';
Wha'll buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth ?
Wha'll buy my caller herrin'?
They're no' brought here without brave darin',
Buy my caller herrin',
Haul'd through wind and rain.
Wha'll buy my caller herrin'?
Oh, ye may ca' them vulgar farin',
Wives and mithers maist despairin',
Ca' them lives o' men.
Lady Carolina Nairne died at the family home of Gask House on the 26th of October, 1845. She was buried within the new chapel, which had been completed only days earlier and a granite cross was erected to her memory in the grounds of Gask House.
Lady Carolina Nairne or Carolina Oliphant, Baroness Nairne, was a secret poet and songwriter whose work is almost as unknown today as it remained unattributed during her life. She is perhaps, Scotland’s best kept secret. She was good at keeping secrets, hiding her song writing talents from everyone, including her husband. Her works were published, but under the pseudonym of ‘B.B.’ and mainly because it was not socially acceptable at that time, the late 18th Century, for ladies to write poetry. Her family were Jacobites and went through some harsh times as a result of their loyalty to Bonnie Prince Charlie. As a result, Carolina was inspired to write spirited poems, many of which were later turned into stirring Jacobean anthems.
Famous examples, known to many throughout the world, include: ‘Charlie is my darling’; ‘The Hundred Pipers’; and the emotive ‘Bonnie Charlie's noo awa’. Now, hands up those who thought Robert Burns or Sir Walter Scott wrote those songs.
Lady Nairne’s work was widely praised for its vivacity and eloquent style, and her songs were – are – second only to those of Burns himself in popularity. She deserves recognition alongside her male contemporaries; of that there’s no doubt. Lady Nairne was also a collector of songs and her legacy is important, because she wrote or adapted nearly one hundred songs and poems, and added contemporary lyrics to many popular Scottish melodies in the process. By so doing, she helped to preserve much of Scotland's musical heritage, which would otherwise have been lost. After she died, her sister published a posthumous collection of Carolina's work, entitled ‘Lays of Strathearn’. That collection marked the first time that Carolina, Lady Nairne, was publicly identified as the author of the eighty-seven poems and songs it contained.
Carolina Oliphant was born on the 16th of August, 1766, at Gask House, near Dunning in Perthshire. Her father was a fierce supporter of the Jacobite movement who went into exile for a while after the Battle of Culloden and her mother’s family forfeited their lands at that time for the same reason. Carolina was named after the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie so, with that background, it’s perhaps not surprising that many of her songs were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. She had three sisters and two brothers, and was fortunate enough to have a father who was a progressive thinker, for his time. He believed in providing an education for girls as well as boys, which was certainly unusual for the time. Her lessons provided opportunity and motivation with which she began to write poetry, mimicking the lyrics of traditional country songs, but improving upon their crude style in her own fashion and for them to be suitable to ‘society folk’.
Carolina gave a strong Jacobean slant to some of these poems as a means of helping to keep up the spirits of her ailing father and her uncle, who was Clan Chief of the Robertsons of Struan. Here we are, hundred of years later, and still many people, whether or not they have nostalgic Jacobite sympathies, find something of cheer, or something that strikes a personal chord, in her songs. In her younger years, Carolina was pretty and energetic, and had a liking for dancing. At school, she was known as ‘pretty Miss Car’, and in adult circles, her striking beauty and pleasing manners earned her the name ‘Flower of Strathearn’. She was a contemporary of Niel Gow, the famous fiddler, who put some of her best loved songs to music; now, there’s a combination to whet the appetite. Some of the popular melodies she adapted in those early days are preserved in songs such as, ‘The Laird o' Cockpen’, and ‘The Pleughman’.
When she was forty-one years old, Carolina Oliphant married her second cousin, Major William Murray Nairne, on the 2nd of June, 1806. In 1824, following George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822 and Sir Walter Scott's endless petitioning, Parliament restored the forfeited Jacobite peerages and Major Nairne was restored to the Barony of Nairne. Thereafter, Carolina became Baroness or Lady Nairne. However, prior to that and after getting married, the couple moved to Edinburgh, which was where she became involved in her lifelong project to preserve and foster the songs of Scotland. In those days, it was not considered proper for society ladies to dabble in what she herself called “this queer trade of song-writing.” Nevertheless, she set about following the example of Burns in the ‘Scots Musical Museum’.
Lady Nairne aimed to bring out a collection of national airs, set to appropriate words, to which she also contributed a large number of original songs under the pseudonym ‘B. B.’ or ‘Mrs Bogan of Bogan’. That nom-de-plume was in order to keep her poetry and songwriting secret from her husband, friends and relatives. She even went as far as to try to keep her true identity secret from the collection's editor, R. A. Smith. When she went to visit him, she used to wear an old, veiled cloak, in the hope that she wouldn’t be recognised. Her work appeared as part of a major collection published by Robert Purdie in Edinburgh between 1821 and 1824, and under the title of ‘The Scottish Minstrel’. Her own song ‘Caller Herring’, which was written to an air created by Neil Gow, is an excellent example of her genuine compassion and understanding of pathos.
Wha'll buy my caller herrin'?
They're bonnie fish and halesome farin';
Wha'll buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth ?
Wha'll buy my caller herrin'?
They're no' brought here without brave darin',
Buy my caller herrin',
Haul'd through wind and rain.
Wha'll buy my caller herrin'?
Oh, ye may ca' them vulgar farin',
Wives and mithers maist despairin',
Ca' them lives o' men.
Lady Carolina Nairne died at the family home of Gask House on the 26th of October, 1845. She was buried within the new chapel, which had been completed only days earlier and a granite cross was erected to her memory in the grounds of Gask House.
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