There cannot be many homes or organisations in the UK where work is not interrupted for a hot drink and often the beverage of choice is tea. The word tea permeates our language – teatime, tea break, afternoon tea, teacup, tealeaves etc – and our supermarket shelves are filled with umpteen varieties of tea from many different countries. In short, tea is an accepted part of everyday life in Britain and we think nothing of it. Perhaps we might switch to a decaffeinated version of our favourite cuppa in order to improve sleep or other health problem; but not many of us stop to ask ourselves whether we should be drinking it at all.
But this was not always the case.
Our exhibition for 2024 is titled Travellers’ Tales and on display is a book published in 1756, written by Jonas Hanway, a London-based businessman, traveller and philanthropist (and supposed to be the first man in London to carry an umbrella.) The book takes the form of a journal in which Hanway described a journey made over eight days between Portsmouth and Kingston-upon Thames. He added to this an Essay on tea in which, over the course of twenty- five letters addressed to either Mrs D or Mrs O (whose identities are unclear) he set out the reasons for his staunch opposition to the use of tea brought to Britain from China.
Image: copyright The Library of Innerpeffray
With regards to health he opined that tea was ‘intoxicating’ people and turning their brains. Specifically, Hanway believed that tea was slowly poisoning people with copper, a substance used in the process of drying tealeaves.
He noted that the Chinese tended not to drink tea themselves, preferring to drink cold water where the supply was clean and safe. When they did drink it was normally unsweetened, a practice which Hanway applauded since he believed sugar to be harmful to health and to teeth in particular. Other effects on health set out in the essay included flatulence, bad breath, poor digestion, bowel complaints, fevers, poor sleep, paralytic disorders, trembling hands, hypochondria and an increased desire for gin. Hanway was not a doctor but he did not shy away from making medical statements. For instance he stated that in succumbing to the ‘tyrannical custom’ of daily tea drinking people were risking their health for ‘so low a gratification. His advice to ladies who suffered with ‘nervous complaints’ was to desist from drinking tea altogether since it provided no benefit to health or nutrition.
One of Hanway’s main arguments against the import of tea was that the absurd expense and the excessive time spent on tea ‘sipping’ was affecting the nation’s commerce, industry and agriculture. As a governor of the Foundling hospital in London he was particularly concerned about increases in infant mortality, which he believed were directly related to tea sipping (and gin consumption) in people he termed the working poor. He urged the richer members of society to set a good example – if they spent less time and money drinking tea, more opportunities for permanent employment of poor workers could be found. That would lead to better productivity and a reliable income would lead workers to better feed and care for their children, thus leading to an improvement in infant mortality. This would then benefit agriculture and commerce, would lessen the dependence on workhouses and foundling hospitals and increase the population available to man ships and fight in wars.
Hanway’s third main objection to tea concerned his belief that the import and smuggling of tea impoverished the nation. He believed that Britain spent far too much of its income on a single commodity and that this endangered the nation’s safety and ability to wage war. He came from a family with links to the navy and was interested in how it could be better manned, clothed and provisioned. The Essay on Tea was written at a time when another war with France was looming and so the ability for people to be able to work, pay taxes and be physically able to fight was paramount. Britain, Hanway thought, would benefit far more from following the example of the French when it came to tea- import better quality tea from China then sell it onto other countries at a large profit, thus retaining capital and monetary control in Britain. Again he urged the rich to set an example, as an act of patriotism – to give up tea willingly, to desist from dissipation and turn instead to more natural herbal infusions.
For more information on how to purchase one of these mugs from our online shop please follow the following link.
Back in 2022, Innerpeffray’s annual exhibition focused on Innovation and Invention, and we featured the signatures of two incredible women who had visited the library and signed its visitors’ books. Elsie Inglis (1864-1917) and Isabel Emslie Hutton (1887-1960) were both key members of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, working throughout Europe during World War I.
L: Dr Eliza Maud “Elsie” Inglis (1864-1917); R: Lady Isabel Emslie Hutton (1887-1960)
Dr Elsie Inglis, suffragist, doctor, and architect of the first world war Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service, visited Innerpeffray with her family in the summer of 1887. And twenty years later, in August 1907, the visitors’ books record the signature of Lady Isabel ‘Bell’ Galloway Emslie Hutton, who served in the Scottish Women’s Hospitals from 1915-20. Both women were honoured with international medals for their service, including the Serbian Order of the White Eagle, the highest honour available in Serbia, of which Inglis was the first female recipient.
Elsie Inglis
Eliza Maud “Elsie” Inglis was born on 16th August 1864 in the Himalayan city of Naini Tal to mother, Harriet Thompson, and father, John Forbes David Inglis, magistrate in the East India Company. Around 1876-1879, the Inglis family returned to Scotland from India, via South Africa and Australia, and settled in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh. In October 1886, Inglis enrolled in the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, newly established by Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1913; Scotland’s first female doctor).[1]
William Arthur Chase, Sophia Jex-Blake(1840-1912) (after Samuel Lawrence); Royal Free Hospital, London
The following year, Inglis visited the Library of Innerpeffray! There are some signatures within the visitors’ books that make me gasp with delight when I read them for the first time. Elsie Inglis’ signature was one of those.
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 1, f.73v
On Tuesday 23rd August 1887, just after her 23rd birthday, Inglis visited Innerpeffray accompanied by family members from both Edinburgh and Crieff: her father John and sister Eva Helen, and her cousins Ellin Runcorn, Teresa, Grace Rivers, Mary Christine and Lawrence McKenzie McLaurin Monteath. The first signature of the travelling party reads, “Messr. Monteath, Mitchell & Co”, which may indicate that the following men were also present: Alexander McLaurin Monteath, Elsie’s uncle; and perhaps Dr. Richard Ashmore Mitchell (1856-1926), who married Ellin Runcorn the following year, in 1888; and/or Ellin’s future father-in-law, Henry Mitchell (1823-1901). According to Alexander Porteous’ History of Crieff (1912), Alexander McLaurin Monteath was the Director-General of the Post Office in India.[2] While visiting Crieff, the Inglis family would likely have been staying with the McLaurin Monteath family at Broich Cottage.
Inglis-McLaurin Monteath Family Tree
Just a couple of days later, on Thursday 25th August, the signature “J. Inglis & party” from Edinburgh is entered in the visitors’ book, along with the number 8 in brackets. I think we can infer from this that the entire Inglis-McLaurin Monteath clan were so charmed with Innerpeffray that they came back for a second visit!
In 1889, Inglis left Jex-Blake’s school, partially due to the expulsion of two fellow students, Grace and Martha Georgina Cadell, who went on to successfully sue Jex-Blake and the school. Then in 1890, Inglis and her father established the Medical College for Women on Chambers Street in Edinburgh, in direct competition with Jex-Blake. The Cadell sisters and Inglis all finished their medical education at the new Medical College for Women, and later that year, Inglis joined the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. In 1906, Inglis co-founded the Scottish Women’s Suffragette Federation, where she acted as Honorary Secretary until 1914.
Elsie Inglis (Edinburgh Central Library), Between the Lines: Letters and Diaries from Elsie Inglis’s Russian Unit (1999)
After passing her exams in 1892 and becoming Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Edinburgh and Glasgow, Inglis worked in Edinburgh, London and Dublin, specialising in midwifery and maternity and focusing on improving conditions for impoverished women.
In 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War One, Inglis, aged 50, a respected consultant, physician and surgeon, offered her services to the Royal Army Medical Corp. She was told,
“My good lady, go home and sit still.”
Isabel Galloway Emslie Hutton
Nineteen days after Elsie Inglis’ first visit to Innerpeffray Library, on 11th September 1887, Isabel Galloway Emslie (later Hutton) was born in Edinburgh to Janet Tod Emslie and James Emslie, Advocate and Substitute Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland.
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 3, f.22r
Aged 19, on 10th August 1907, Emslie visited the Library of Innerpeffray with her parents, signing the visitors’ book as “Bell”. Only after looking into her father, James Emslie, did I discover the link to his eminent daughter and the career she was just beginning. From 1910 to 1912, Emslie graduated from the University of Edinburgh and gained her M.D., specialising in pathology and psychiatry. Between 1912 and 1915, she worked at the Stirling District Asylum, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
Isabel Emslie Hutton (1887-1960), With a Woman’s Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol (1928)
It was 1915 when Emslie went to the War Office in Edinburgh, where she was rejected by the Royal Army Medical Corp. A young policeman stopped her as she watched young recruits and said,
“Ye’d be better at hame knittin’ socks for the lads.”[4]
Scottish Women’s Hospitals
Not in any way deterred by these statements, both Inglis and Emslie went on to do extraordinary work during the First World War.
After having her services refused by the British Government, Inglis offered help to the French Government, who accepted. Inglis founded the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Home and Foreign Service (soon shortened to SWH) – women-staffed field hospitals welcomed by the Allies and established initially in France, Greece and Serbia.
Elsie Inglis, Great Tapestry of Scotland
In October 1914, Inglis wrote a letter to a fellow suffrage campaigner, Millicent Fawcett, in which she said,
“I cannot think of anything more calculated to bring home to men the fact that women can help intelligently in any kind of work. So much of our work is done where they cannot see it. They’ll see every bit of this.”[5]
Throughout 1915, Inglis acted as Chief Medical Officer in charge of the First Serbian Unit of the SWH in Kragujevac. In October, Serbia was invaded on two fronts and SWH staff were ordered to accompany the soldiers retreating over the Albanian border. Inglis refused to leave her seriously ill patients and, accompanied by fellow medical staff, was taken as a Prisoner of War by Germany. As Prisoners of War the women were allowed to keep working until their patients were well, at which point they were repatriated, via Belgrade, Vienna and Zurich, reaching Britain in February 1916. Inglis immediately took off for Odesa, establishing a SWH team in what was then Russia. In April of that year, the Crown Prince of Serbia awarded Inglis with the Order of the White Eagle – the highest medal in Serbia’s power to bestow. Inglis was the first ever female recipient.
On 26th November 1917, just days before returning home to Edinburgh from the Russian front, Inglis died in Newcastle. Despite never meeting in person, Emslie wrote in her diary,
“Dr. Elsie Inglis had gone, however, to her rest; tired out, but valiant in the end, she had slipped away the day after arriving from Russia, whence she had brought the Jugo-Slavs so that they might go to the help of their brothers in Serbia. But she lived in others, and her inspiration kept us all going and ever striving to higher things.”[6]
Inglis was honoured with a full military funeral in St. Giles Cathedral and was buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh. In July 1925, ‘The Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital’ was built in Edinburgh using surplus funds from the SWH. Children born there were known as “Elsie’s Babies”.
Medals awarded to Elsie Inglis, Surgeon’s Hall Museums, Edinburgh
Inglis’ medals are now stored at the Surgeon’s Hall Museums in Edinburgh. From left to right, these medals are described as follows: “Given by the Russian Government under the late Czar”, “The Great International War Medal”, “Order of the White Eagle”, “Medal struck to commemorate the work of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals”, “From the British Committee of the French Red Cross.”
Emslie had signed up to the SWH in August 1915 and was working as an Assistant Medical Officer and Pathologist in Champagne, France. In November 1915, her unit reached Salonika, Greece, accompanied by Flora Sandes, who would go on to become a sergeant in the Serbian Army. In 1918, after three years on the staff of the SWH, Emslie was promoted to command the hospital at Ostrovo, Serbia. Before leaving Serbia, Emslie was awarded with the Order of the White Eagle, the Order of Saint Sava, the French War Cross and the Russian Order of St. Anna.
After the war, Emslie worked with Lady Muriel Paget’s Child Welfare Scheme and housed almost 140,000 Crimean refugees and orphaned children. Throughout the rest of her life, Emslie worked in hospitals for the poor and served as the Director of the Indian Red Cross during the Second World War. She died at home in London in January 1960 and was buried with her parents in Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.
It’s an interesting coincidence that while she was working in Crimea, Emslie crossed paths with the Honourable Claude Hay (1862-1920), who was related to the founding family of Innerpeffray. Claude Hay was the fifth son of George Hay-Drummond, the 12th Earl of Kinnoull (1827-1897), who was in turn the great-grandson of Robert Hay-Drummond (1711-1776), who inherited Innerpeffray from our founder, David Drummond, 3rd Lord Madertie (1611-1694).
Emslie described Hay in her 1928 book, With a Woman’s Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol:
“Mr. Hay was always faultlessly turned out, and was dressed exactly as if he were walking down Picadilly to have lunch at his club; he often drove in an old Victoria, which, if it had not been for the bequilted and touzled isvostchik (driver), was exactly suited to his style. He worked hard and in a most business-like way, and was much respected and loved by the Russians, to whom his courtly manners and quaint ways made a great appeal.”[7]
Hay was in Crimea representing TheDaily Telegraph and apparently often told war stories of his great-uncle, Captain Hon. Robert Hay-Drummond (1831-1855), who fought in the Crimean War as part of the Coldstream Guards. Indeed, apparently Robert Hay-Drummond appointed James Christie as Librarian and Schoolmaster of Innerpeffray by letter written from the front lines in 1855.[8] It makes me wonder if Emslie and Hay ever spoke about Innerpeffray.
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Books Volumes 1 and 3, open to show signatures of Isabel Emslie Hutton and Elsie Inglis, displayed with Serbian Stamps, Commemorating ‘British Heroines of the First World War in Serbia’ (2015)
Serbian Stamps, Commemorating Elsie Inglis and Isabel Emslie Hutton, ‘British Heroines of the First World War in Serbia’ (2015)
By Armistice Day, 11th November 1918, 14 Scottish Women’s Hospitals, staffed by more than 1000 women, had worked in six different countries and saved countless lives. Elsie Inglis and Isabel Emslie Hutton refused to sit still or go home and knit socks, and instead made lasting contributions to medicine and the wider world.
After viewing the 2022 exhibition at Innerpeffray, Perthshire poet Jim Mackintosh was inspired to pen the following poem, which he has kindly allowed me to share here.
Jim Mackintosh, Beyond the Trench (2022)
[1] William Arthur Chase, Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1912) (after Samuel Lawrence), Royal Free Hospital, London, B117 <https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/sophia-jex-blake-18401912-123862>.
[2] Alexander Porteous, The History of Crieff From the Earliest Times to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1912), p. 79.
[3]Between the Lines: Letters and Diaries from Elsie Inglis’s Russian Unit, ed. by Audrey Fawcett Cahill (Pentland Press, 1999).
[4] Isabel Emslie Hutton, With a Women’s Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol (Williams and Norgate, 1928), p. 16.
[5] Elsie Inglis, ‘Letter to Millicent Fawcett’, 9 October 1914, cited in Audrey Fawcett Cahill, Between the Lines: Letters and Diaries from Elsie Inglis’ Russian Unit.
The air is brim with a refreshing pungency from sweet cicely blooms bursting along the road banks. Rattling, I race off the tarmac on my 1946 moss-green Copenhagen, past the old ford, past the farm cottage and out-buildings, down the pot-holed, plum-line Roman road. To my right I am less than a peltast’s shot from the Strageath Flavian Roman marching camp; a broccoli field one year, swathes of wheat the next. In a cloud of dry late spring dust, I arrive at the gillie’s brittle wood hut on the raised bank of the River Earn. In the lower pool there are sluggish grilse in the summer; good grayling in the winter.
Twenty metres high on the steep bank across the water perches the white gable end of Innerpeffray Library, beaming through the sycamore canopies – a pearl mounted in the ribbon sweep of Strathearn. I drag my dinghy from its stash between the bank and the field and rest my bicycle in its place. I adjust my canvas shoulder-bag, push out into the upper fast pool, and paddle to an eddy shaded by an orbed willow on the opposite bank. Ted, a past library custodian, reckoned I was the first person to row across the rapids for a read since 1939, when the ferry service a few yards up stream from Cobblehaugh Cottage was stopped.
Why this antiquated route? The longer road from my home in Muthill, though very beautiful, dips and winds through oilseed rape and battery hen barracks. I object to both; most of all, their odours are similarly rancid and stifling, only too intense when cycling. And besides, my less conventional route, if not eccentric, is the more poetic approach.
Why did I come? Books: the sweet must-smell of leather binding; brittle pages with contents that leave me feeling richly satiated. Specifically, antiquarian works relating to the matter of food: recipes, incidental literary references, fantastic monastic pseudo-scientific treatises on herbs, beasties and fowls, agricultural practices, and quack medical innovations.
Cookery and Pastry as Practiced by Mrs MacIver, A New Edition by Susanna MacIver (Edinburgh, London: 1789), looks promising for its range, from apothecary madness, to charming turns of phrase:
Take a pound of hartshorn shavings, nine ounces of eringo root, three ounces of isinglass, of chopin of bruised snails, …two vipers, or four ounces of the powder of them, …two Scotch pints of water, …a mutchkin of Rhenish wine, half a pound of brown sugar-candy, the juice of two Seville oranges, the whites of three eggs… (Jelly for a Consumption); and, potch some eggs very nicely; …earn some new milk; press the whey…
I find a recipe that catches my attention: Spices, Proper to be mixed with any kind of seasoning. I take notes. This appears to be a rather ubiquitous ingredient, being applied to soups for pigeon, hare, leek, onion, and pease; roast cod head; codling with ale and lemon zest; stewed sole; parton (crab) pies; potted eels; potted herring; beef a-la-mode; forced meet balls. Sun streams through the east window. Hot pine boards and honey-coloured book bindings mingle in aromatic melodies.
Enough for the day, I pack my pencils and emboss my notebook entry with the Innerpeffray Mortuary Society’s emblem.
On my way back to the boat, I munch on a ramson flower head. This wild garlic blooms in profusion around the library grounds. White crowns in green grounds. I pick more to make my ramson fritters in tempura batter when I get home – if they survive the scramble down the bank and the boat journey in my pockets. I gather some sweet cicely leaves, too. This sweet herb is reasonably thought to have been introduced by the Romans to the Romano-British kitchen garden. Its profusion in proximity to an area historically defined by a profound Roman presence perhaps bears testimony to this. A tomato salad with fronds of sweet cicely haloing a crown of ramsom flowers, drizzled with a light olive oil is heavenly.
Cycling back through the green fields and hedgerows to my rural pile, I wonder how I might apply this spice mix myself. I’ve tested other ‘kitchen pepper’ recipes – similarly from 18th and 19th century cookery books – but they seem a bit harsh on the palate. I don’t see any reason to doubt that these ubiquitous kitchen peppers owe their genesis to some formulæ of fifteenth century cookery manuscripts: poudyr Lumbard, or poudyr fort. Mrs MacIver, however, proves to have struck the perfect balance. Can it be adapted beyond providing her recipes with the MacIver idiosyncrasy? I remember Christiane Dabdoub Nasser’s Classic Palestinian Cookery, and a rather splendid recipe she gives for a very simple and hearty meat and pea stew, Yakhnet bazela, made with either beef or lamb. Back in the kitchen, I try the culinary cultural cross over. …It works perfectly, and as a species of adaptation it is a completely outstanding dish served with either mashed potatoes with a pinch of dried sage, or parsnip pureed with lashings of butter. Mistresses MacIver and Nasser, shake hands.
RECIPES
Mrs MacIver’s Spices, Proper to be mixed with any kind of seasoning
(Metric equivalent inserted)
Take an ounce [25g] of black and an ounce [25g] of Jamaica pepper [allspice berries], two drop of cloves, and two or three nutmegs; beat them into a powder, and mix them all together, and put them in a box or bottle, so as they catch no air; and then you have them ready for seasoning any kind of sauce.
Place all the spices together in an electric grinder and process them to a fine powder. I take two drop of cloves to mean two cloves; I add three. I use two nutmegs; though it is an idea to partially crush them before processing with the other ingredients. Jarring the spice is as good as any box or bottle.
TWO RECIPES ADAPTED FROM CHRISTIANE DABDOUB NASSER’S CLASSIC PALESTINIAN COOKERY USING MRS MACIVER’S SPICES
MRS MACIVER’S SPICES WITH YAKHNET BAZELA
Serves 4
1lb lamb or beef, diced1 large onion
2 tsp MacIver Spice1lb fresh or frozen peas (thawed)
In a stewing-pot, brown the meat in 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil; reserve on a plate. Thinly slice the onion and brown for 3–4 minutes in another tablespoon of oil. Return the meat. Add the MacIver Spice and enough water to cover the contents of the pot. Bring to simmering point and place the lid over the stew. Simmer for just over an hour, or until the meat is sufficiently tender. Add the peas and simmer for a further 15 minutes, uncovered. Season with salt.
This fair is normally served with a variety of rice, but potato mashed with lots of butter and a good pinch of dried sage I think is an excellent accompaniment. It is also very hearty if served with parsnip pureed with lots of butter.
SPICY GRILLED TOMATOES
This recipe makes splendid use of the MacIver Spice; and it seems perfectly natural to combine the spice mix with tomato, since it shares the inclusion of spice similar to another Palestinian recipe offered by Dabdoub Nasser, Kallayet banadoura – tomato and garlic with pepper and allspice.
Simply hew the tomatoes in half and place on some tin foil, cut-side up. Drizzle a little olive oil over each tomato, and season each with salt and a generous pinch of MacIver Spice – about ¼ teaspoon. Place under a hot grill for five minutes. Remove from the grill and allow the tomatoes to cool 2 minutes. This is a splendid breakfast option for its substance, and the spice mix is surprisingly subtle.
TWO RECIPES ADAPTED FROM COOKERY AND PASTRY, AS TAUGHT AND PRACTISED BY MRS MACIVER
TO MAKE FORCED-MEAT BALLS
Mrs MacIver offers a simple recipe for forced-meat balls using her spice mix, which is diverse in its adaptation for beef, pork, veal or mutton. Mix the minced meat with egg and season with salt and the spice mix. Roll into balls, dust with flour, and fry until browned.
However, a serious omission with many cookery writers of yore is their vagueness in the context of quantity; it seems to be something of a tradition, or authors relied on readers’ kitchen a priori. And though Mrs MacIver was fastidious enough to preface her book with a weights and measures conversion table to make her volume universal, she is no exception to the omission of quantities in the main body of many of her recipes. Ever your kitchen aide, I recommend the following ratios for serving four people:
400g Aberdeen Angus beef, minced½ tsp chilli flakes (optional for extra bight)a small handful of parsley, finely chopped
4 tsp MacIver Spice½ tsp sea saltflour for dusting
Place the minced meat with the MacIver Spice, optional chilli, parsley and salt in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Using a teaspoon, scoop enough of the mix to roll into small balls between the palms of your hands. Roll in flour to give a light dusting and fry in two tablespoons of olive oil for 6 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden brown.
SPICED SALMON FILLET
Mrs MacIver’s To roast Salmon method requires a whole silvery beast, buttered and seasoned with salt and powdered with her mixed spice. But adapting this recipe to elegantly spice salmon fillet is a good idea.
1x150g salmon fillets per personMacIver Spice
1 tbsp groundnut oil
Dust the salmon fillets with a generous amount of MacIver Spice, and season with sea salt. Add the groundnut oil to a large frying pan and cook the fish, flesh-side down, 3–4 minutes. Turn the fillets, and repeat the cooking on the skin-side. Rest the fish pieces on a tray in a warm oven for 5 minutes. Dust with finely chopped parsley and serve.
Bibliography
Susanna MacIver, Cookery and Pastry, As Taught and Practised by Mrs MacIver: teacher of those arts in Edinburgh. A New Edition (London: C. Elliot & T. Kay; Edinburgh: C. Eliot, 1789).
This article first appeared in Petits Propos Culinaire: PPC96 (June 2012), pp. 66-71, many thanks to the author and to Prospect Books for the permission to reproduce it here.
NLS Acc.13951(iii) Photograph of ‘Grandfather Hugh Aird, D.D., Brechin’
We started thinking about this year’s exhibition by considering who visited Innerpeffray 150 years ago, in 1874. With 181 visitors to the library that year, we could not focus on them all, and one interesting gentleman we did not manage to highlight in the main exhibition was the Reverend Hugh Aird, M.A., D.D. (1824-1895).
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 1, f.28v
On Saturday 5th September 1874, ‘Hugh Aird, M.A.’ wrote his signature in the Innerpeffray visitors’ book, indicating that he had come from Brechin, Angus, perhaps accompanied by ‘William Stevenson, M.A.’, from Madras, India (what is now Chennai), who visited on the same date.[1]
Born in Glasgow in November 1824 and educated at Glasgow University, Aird was ordained by the United Presbyterian Church in Arbroath in January 1854 and received his doctorate from Glasgow in April 1889 (15 years after his visit to Innerpeffray). A much esteemed and respected member of the community, Aird preached at the City Road United Presbyterian Church in Brechin for forty years. He died after a brief illness, aged 70, in July 1895, and is buried in Brechin Cemetery.
While doing some initial research into Hugh Aird in case we decided to feature him in the 2024 exhibition, I came across some related items held by the National Library of Scotland: a photograph, printed by Glasgow company MacLure, MacDonald & Co. taken at some point between 1889 and Aird’s death in 1895; a printed obituary, featuring an excerpt from The United Presbyterian Magazine, 2nd September 1895; and a handwritten hymnal filled with around 80 tunes of the United Presbyterian Church.[2]
The obituary is finely printed and tells much about the man and his legacy, in addition to details of his funeral, which was presided over by the Reverend R. C. Cameron of Cambridge Street United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow. Aird was a member of the Mechanics’ Institution, the Parochial Board, chairman of the Brechin Savings’ Bank and Burgh School Board, and a “popular speaker at temperance meetings and at the annual gatherings of Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations.” [3] What the obituary does not include, however, is any details on Aird’s involvement with music, which leads me to perhaps the most interesting item of this manuscript collection: Aird’s personal hymnbook.
NLS Acc.13951(i) Bookplate, ‘Hugh Aird 1839’
NLS Acc.13951(i) ‘Book of United Presbyterian hymn tunes of the Rev. Dr Hugh Aird’
This lovely little book features Aird’s bookplate on the inside front cover and almost 100 tunes for Presbyterian hymns, handwritten on hand-drawn staves, with an alphabetical contents page. The tunes are written with four-part harmonies and mostly titled with names of locations, such as Derby, Eastgate, Glasgow, Hamilton, New Portugal, and St. Lawrence. Other titles include Comfort, Creation, Invocation, Refuge and Tranquility [sic]. Almost all the tunes are followed by the initials C.M., L.M. or S.M., indicating each tune’s metre – either Common, Long, or Short Metre. The book seems to have been a work in progress, as Aird has started copying ‘Sicilian Hymn’ into the book but it is left unfinished, and it does not appear in the contents page.
NLS Acc.13951(i) ‘Book of United Presbyterian hymn tunes of the Rev. Dr Hugh Aird’
These may have been some of the most well-known or most popular tunes commonly sung in Aird’s locality, all gathered into one place as an easy reference for a choir, or, indeed, Aird himself.
The Psalmes of David in Metre, with Divers Notes, and Tunes Augmented to Them. (Middelburgh: Richard Schilders, 1594).
In the majority of cases, we do not know how historical visitors spent their time at Innerpeffray. Did they have a guided tour, much like visitors today? Were they able to peruse the collection and sit and read or examine books? Although we do not know for sure, we can guess at some books which might have been of interest to certain visitors. One such book which may have interested Hugh Aird is a sixteenth-century collection of psalms set to metre, “with Tunes augmented to them”.[4]
The Psalmes of David in Metre, with Divers Notes, and Tunes Augmented to Them. (Middelburgh: Richard Schilders, 1594).
Many of the tunes within are credited to Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins, whose arrangements of psalms set to metre had a wide readership and were frequently bound with copies of the Bible. It would be interesting to know if any of the tunes laid out in this book from 1594 were still in use in 1874, when Hugh Aird visited Innerpeffray. Perhaps Aird even transcribed some of these old tunes into his personal hymnal.
To learn more about other historical visitors to Innerpeffray and the books that they might have read, come along to the 2024 exhibition, Travelling Tales, which will be open until the end of October. This year’s Festival of Reading, A Way with Words, will be taking place from Thursday 5th to Sunday 8th September, with a wide range of workshops, talks and performances to celebrate books and reading. And if you would like to hear even more about Innerpeffray’s visitors’ books and my PhD research, I will be giving the FOIL Ted Powell Memorial lecture this year on 23rd October.
Isla Macfarlane, PhD Candidate
Footnotes:
[1]William Stevenson may have been a student of the Madras Christian College, which was originally founded by Church of Scotland missionaries. A nineteenth-century article about the Madras Christian College, in the magazine Harvest Field, is featured in this year’s exhibition.
[2] National Library of Scotland Archives and Manuscripts Division, ‘Book of United Presbyterian Hymn Tunes of the Rev. Dr Hugh Aird, Brechin, with Associated Material.’, NLS Archives and Manuscript Catalogue <https://manuscripts.nls.uk/repositories/2/resources/19078> [accessed 9 May 2023].
Throughout history and literature, women have been associated with the use of mirrors, both for personal reasons such as vanity and for activities that have led them into trouble e.g. witchcraft and fortune telling. Today, our homes and lifestyles are seldom without mirrors in one form or another. We use them without thinking about their history or use in past societies and we, perhaps surprisingly, still share with our children fairy tales and animated films that promote the idea of nasty queens using mirrors for their own evil purposes.
As we approach International Women’s Day with its global objectives of promoting change for women and celebrating their achievements, we thought it would be interesting to share information about a book that came to be in the library as part of our Founder’s original collection. Our edition of ‘A Mirrour, or Looking-Glasse both for Saints & Sinners,’ was published in 1671 and written by Samuel Clarke, a significant puritan pastor of the era.1 At the time of publication Clarke had been ejected from the church for his non-conformity to the requirements on religion of the Restoration monarch, Charles II. Nevertheless, he had continued to write and his 1671 text examined an enormous list of unrelated subjects, including ‘examples of women, good and bad.’ A feature of the book is that there is no rhyme or reason to the chronology or geography of the subjects covered.
In the seventeenth century these types of book, now known as looking glass histories, became popular reading and Clarke’s book has, indeed, been discussed by academics as a good example of the genre.2 In England, where Clarke’s book was published, the developing and important science of optics became associated with literature that used old and philosophical metaphors of mirrors. Between 1640 and 1660 about 185 titles containing the words mirror or looking glass were published; so it was not a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon.
The aim of these books was not just to educate the reader in a bewilderingly large variety of topics but also to invite them to examine their own lives, as if through a mirror, in the context of examples from history and other cultures. In that way the conditions of their daily life could, in theory, be better understood; people could become agents for change in society and perhaps the future could be determined. This latter aspect might seem strange considering the religious nature of the times; but given that generally held and popular beliefs about reflective surfaces were then quite different, perhaps we should not be surprised. Although the science of optics was developing steadily, people still held onto notions that they might not see just their own reflection when they looked in a mirror. The illustrations included in the books were of a religious nature, countering superstition and reminding the reader of God’s role in daily life. Text included with these illustrations, as seen above in the picture of Clarke’s frontispiece, also reminded the reader of God’s goodness and mercy.
Clark wrote an ‘Epistle to the Reader’ or introduction, in which he outlined that previous editions had taken examples and information largely from writers who were either heathen or prophane (sic). The 1671 edition had, however, taken its sources from Christian and ecclesiastical writers. This might help to explain why the earlier editions had included several chapters on women where they were described in positive terms such as ‘women valiant’, ‘women religious’ and ‘women learned’ whereas the Innerpeffray edition of 1671 only refers to ‘women, good and bad.’ A subtle shift in perception perhaps, but still a shift.
Left: an engraving of Samuel Clarke taken from the Library of Innerpeffray’s copy of “Saints & Sinners.’ The engraving is attributed to Thomas Cross3.
Title page from the 1671 edition held at the Library of Innerpeffray, showing the Founder’s signature, Madertie, in the top left-hand corner.
Clarke’s introduction to the reader also outlined that the examples outlined in his Mirrour text were of two sorts. Firstly, they would show ‘God’s severe and signal judgment on wrongdoing and wrongdoers.’ Secondly, the examples would promote an ‘….amiableness of piety and virtue.’ In other words, a wise reader should learn from the errors of others and follow good examples of behaviour in order to live a good and godly life. Particular emphasis was placed upon great men and ministers of the church to exert a good influence on others for they were ‘…looking glasses by which all about them dress themselves.’
So, having set out his premise for the text to follow, what did Clarke have to say about women? Well, many things, which viewed through the prism of present day sensibilities would be cast aside as pure sexism. But through the eyes of a seventeenth century woman, reading examples of the courage and heroism of women from the recent and distant past, it might well be viewed as inspirational and/or cautionary.
Broadly speaking, the examples of ‘women, good and bad’ can be summarized by this reader under several categories, as shown below. Other readers may interpret things differently of course but that is the nature of the looking glass! It is worth noting here that Clarke himself made no distinction in the text between what he considered to be good and bad examples of behavior in women; he simply made a list.
Women who were praised for their beauty, appearance, actions or attributes, mostly via the endorsement or approval of a man/men – fathers, husbands, sons, armies, clergy.
Women who were judged by other women and who might suffer reputational damage in terms of their character and morals. Queen Elizabeth I was praised by a European princess for her refusal to associate with any woman she considered to be ‘stained.’
Women who defied their husbands (but for good causes/reasons, often to look after men working or fighting for their spouses.)
Women who were learned and knowledgeable. Interestingly, Sappho was cited as notable for her skill in lyric poetry and the invention of Sapphic verse. No comment was made on any other aspect of her life.
Women who went beyond what was expected of them (i.e despite their female state) in battle, leadership, public speaking, war. The examples given were mostly of women who lived in ancient times although Elizabeth I was cited once again for her famous speech to her troops at Tilbury, where she spoke of having the body of a weak and feeble woman but the stomach of a king.
Women who prayed for death eg Queen Margaret, wife of the King of Scots, who was said to have died three days after praying for her own demise, after hearing that her husband and son had been killed in battle.
Women who were stubborn and stood up to men despite the threat of death – in 1529 a French woman was reported by her maid to the Jesuits for having a bible in her home and for not attending mass. When she refused the Jesuits’ demand that she recant and burn her bible(!) she was burned at the stake.
Women of conscience; for example, in 1620 an Italian woman was killed then hacked to pieces for refusing to change her religion.
Women who acted inhumanely and without conscience. Welsh women came in for bad press here when they were castigated for their actions on the battlefield after Owen Glendower defeated Edmund Mortimer in the time of King Henry IV of England. They were said to have stripped and mutilated the bodies of dead English soldiers, then used the body parts in various disrespectful practices.
Women who were of ‘ a lower creation’ (i.e not of the Christian faith) or who did not attend church.
Though three hundred and fifty years have passed since Samuel Clarke invited his readers to consider written examples of goodness and badness in women, present day readers may be tempted to think that some things have not changed very much. Women’s lives and situations are indeed very different now but we are still subject to inequality and superficial judgments on appearance, temperament and ability. It is still, in some respects, a man’s world and the need for International Women’s Day is still vital, to help women to achieve equality in all its forms. Samuel Clarke’s notion of the use of a looking glass might be outdated but he probably would not be surprised to learn that women (and men) are still prone to the use of mirrors. How we see ourselves in them has changed but we can still learn from their past.
Footnotes and Sources.
Samuel Clarke (1599-1683) was a significant puritan clergyman, biographer and writer of histories. He played a part in the religious and political life of London both in the time of Charles I and Charles II, though he was later ejected from the church for his non-conformity. At the time of publication of the 1671 edition of ‘Saints & Sinners’ he was described as the sometime pastor of St.Benet Fink in London, which was a church in the Threadneedle Street area of the city. It was rebuilt by St. Christopher Wren after the 1666 Great Fire of London. St. Benet refers to St. Benedict, the founder of western monasticism whilst Fink is thought to be derived from the name of Robert Fink (or Finch) who was a thirteenth century church benefactor. Finch or Fink Lane was a street associated with Robert’s family and was located near Threadneedle Street.
Thomas Cross (the elder) was an English engraver who was known to be active between 1644 and 1682. He engraved many portraits of authors for frontispieces and title pages of books. He is also known for his work in engraving shorthand manuals (he invented his own shorthand system).
From Thursday 7th to Sunday 10th September 2023, Innerpeffray Library hosted its third annual Festival of Reading, celebrating the theme of Wild Words. Authors, poets, storytellers, musicians, artists, and readers met in and around the historic location of Scotland’s first free lending library.
Singer: Naomi Harvey; Crieff Drama Group: Tom Inglis, Helen Day, Mike Owens, Ann MorrisonJohn Cummings Jane Drysdale
On Thursday evening, the Festival of Reading kicked off with a new production by the Crieff Drama Group, featuring traditional Scots and Gaelic songs performed by Innerpeffray’s very own Library Assistant Naomi Harvey. Hosted by Strathearn Arts in Crieff, Heroic Strife Famed Afar treated the audience to a new perspective on the 1745 Jacobite Uprising, the Battle of Culloden, and its aftermath. The performance included dramatic reading of archival material put together by the late Tony Murray of Dollerie House in a collection of his ancestor’s letters entitled, ‘A Young Man’s Path to Culloden’. The show was entertaining and illuminating, and Naomi’s singing was beautiful.
On Friday afternoon, library volunteer and expert craftsperson Gillean Ford hosted The Art of the Book: Printing from Nature, a hands-on workshop inspired by the natural world and the area surrounding Innerpeffray. Participants made beautiful prints using all sorts of local flora, including seed heads, leaves, firs, and moss.
The Art of the Book: Printing From Nature
A Festival of Reading favourite, Perthshire poet Jim C. Mackintosh hosted a sold-out spectacular on Friday evening. Joined by violinist Karys Watt, guitarist Dave Macfarlane, poet Julie McNeill and legendary writer and storyteller Dolina MacLennan, the library rang with music and laughter throughout the night. An absolute highlight was the unexpected audience participation, which had various sections of the audience loudly impersonating lambs and calves separated from their families – all in the name of attracting the attention of an invading mythical beast set on destroying the Scots Pines of Perthshire. Say it with me now: it had the head of a woman, the body of a whale, and the wings of an eagle!
Wild Words, Read Aloud: Jim C. Mackintosh, Karys Watt, Dave Macfarlane, Julie McNeill and Dolina MacLennan
Jim also treated audience members to a special gift: a handwritten piece of his poetry, with everyone getting a unique extract (some previously unpublished!). In addition to leaving the night with unforgettable stories and wild words, we also took home love, peace and poetry.
Love, Peace, Poetry booklet with extract from poem by Jim C. Mackintosh
Over the weekend, Innerpeffray was visited by four acclaimed writers based in Scotland. Picture book author and illustrator Natalie Russell led a group of children in an arts and crafts workshop inspired by Hamish the Highland Cow, and journalist, author and poet Merryn Glover told us what Scotland means to her and discussed her latest book, The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd.
Merryn Glover
Nature writer Keith Broomfield presented some amazing photos of the wildlife and locations that have inspired him to write books including A Scottish Wildlife Odyssey.
Keith Broomfield in conversation with Steph Haxton
Fiona Valpy took us on a journey throughout the inspired settings of her bestselling works of fiction, including her upcoming novel The Sky Beneath Us – the title of which was revealed as an Innerpeffray exclusive!
Fiona Valpy in conversation with Gillean Ford
On Sunday afternoon, the 2023 Festival of Reading came to a close with Pop-up Poetry by the River, hosted by local poet Jennie Turnbull in Innerpeffray’s stone storytelling circle. Listeners and readers came together in this very special location to hear poems on the theme of Wild Words. Thank you to Lesley Buchan Donald, Alastair Donald, Tom Langlands, Ian Ledward and Karen Macfarlane for reading their poems – it is a brave thing to stand up and read your own writing to a group of strangers and we really appreciate the poets sharing their words with us.
Poetry in the Innerpeffray Stone Circle
The 2023 Festival of Reading was filled with serendipity – a reminder of what a special place the Library of Innerpeffray is. Our poetry circle was almost put off by a lightning storm but instead, the first drops of rain fell just as we said our goodbyes; the threat of thunder in the air gave an appropriate atmosphere to the proceedings. On Saturday, we heard the story of how Gillean Ford picked up a novel by chance one day in the Innerpeffray second-hand book stall and decided to get in touch with the author to share how much she loved it – leading to Fiona Valpy coming to talk at the Festival.
Also during the week, two separate groups visited the library looking for names in our archive of historical visitors’ books. We were able to successfully find their own signatures or those of their families and Innerpeffray played host to an unexpected reunion between old neighbours who had not seen each other for twenty years. You would be surprised by how often this kind of spooky happenstance occurs in the library!
As Governor Steph Haxton reminded us on Friday evening, Innerpeffray is a place where words matter and magic is created. To all who read, sang, made art, and came along to listen and enjoy, thank you for being a part of the 2023 Festival of Reading.
Innerpeffray may have been conceived as a lending library all those centuries ago by David Drummond, third Lord Madertie, but this purpose has expanded over the intervening years to the wonderful resource we have today. One of the more recent uses is as a reference library, and it is thanks to this that this blogpost was conceived. As well as my role as a volunteer guide at the Library, I am a Process Safety Engineer and part of this job entails raising awareness of previous industrial incidents to identify where things went wrong and how we in the industry can reduce the likelihood of similar events happening in the future. Typically, these hark back to events from, at most, thirty or forty years ago – easily within living memory. For a change, however, I decided to use the Library to see if there were records of industrial accidents going back not just decades, but centuries. My search was successful…
The first incident I came across was an account of a colliery explosion by Dr. Arthur Charlett, who was the Master of University College, Oxford, from 1692 to 1722. This was included within the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the oldest science journal in the world. The account describes an incident at Fatfield Colliery, which is situated just to the south of Newcastle on the River Wear. On 18th August 1708, at around 3am, there was, to quote Dr. Charlett, “The sudden Eruption of a violent Fire”. As you can see from the text above, he goes into great and vivid detail of the impact of the colliery explosion and the extents of the blast damage. He goes on to describe some of the different dangerous gases that might be encountered whilst mining – the “Stith” and the “Sulphur” – and the effects of each. For modern day readers, the “stith” is an asphyxiant and would most likely consist of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and the “Sulphur” refers to methane with some residual sulphur components to give the smell. Given the explosion, it is more likely that the build-up in this case was the “Sulphur” – if you think of damage caused by gas explosions in people’s homes today, it is easy to understand the deadly impact of a build-up of methane.
What was particularly fascinating for me from a professional viewpoint was that he does not just describe the event and the background, but does on to actually theorise the sequence of events that led to the issue. The second page of the account (shown above) describes the workings of the mine. The production of “Stith” and “Sulphur” are pretty much unavoidable when mining, certainly in 1708, and, as such, methods have to be found to keep the concentration of these gases at acceptable levels. Today, mines use complicated ventilation systems with fans to ensure that they keep levels down, but in 1708, they were solely reliant on good natural airflow – “a free Communication of Air”, as Dr. Charlett put it. Where this was hard to achieve, by some combination of the mine’s layout and the still atmospheric conditions, workers were removed from the danger zone; a decision that I as a 21st Century Process Safety Engineer very much applaud! Whilst the danger zone was unmanned, however, the noxious and explosive gases were still very much being released. As such, when the wind picked up again, the flammable “Sulphur” was then pushed through the mine until it reached the candle of an Overman. This provided sufficient energy to ignite the flammable cloud, which, through the confinement of the mine’s tunnels, then exploded, killing the men who had returned to work in the mistaken belief that the danger had passed with the increased air flow.
It would be lovely to say that the 69 people who lost their lives that August morning were the last to suffer from a colliery explosion of this kind. Sadly, there were a further three explosions at the same colliery in the next 120 years. Few, if any, changes were made on the back of this incident – the workforce being considered very much expendable and the hazards an unavoidable part of the very profitable mining industry. It took over 100 years for improvements to be made to lighting in mines, with various safety lamps being developed after the Felling Colliery disaster in 1812, the most notable being that of Sir Humphrey Davy.
The second incident that I investigated through the Library’s tomes occurred in Brescia, Italy, in August 1769 (coincidentally 61 years to the day after Fatfield). I came across this in the September edition of the Scots Magazine – the world’s oldest magazine still in publication! The Library holds the first 45 years of the Magazine from 1739 to 1784 and these are particularly popular for Culloden and the Declaration of Independence. It also includes various news articles from around the world, not just those directly affecting Great Britain, hence the inclusion of an account of a magazine of gunpowder exploding after the church in which it was stored was hit by lightning.
As you can see from the text above, the impact was colossal – “it overturned about a sixth-part of the houses in the town, and… buried near 3000 persons under their ruins”; “All the streets are covered with ruins of every sort”; “A cannon of twenty-five hundred weight [1.3 tonnes] carried two miles and a half”.
Unlike the Fatfield colliery incident, this account is entirely descriptive, with little heed given to an explanation of what actually happened. It is, however, responsible for the long held belief that over 3000 people died. In fact, more reliable accounts published a few years after the disaster concluded that the maximum death toll was 400-800 people – still an astonishing number, but significantly less than 3000. It is perhaps unsurprising that this account does not delve too deeply into the explanation of what happened that day – after all, it was fairly simple! Lightning struck the church where the gunpowder was stored and the spark ignited the highly flammable powder. The confines of the vaults in which it was being stored ensured that that the church acted effectively like a bomb and so caused it to explode. Given lightning strikes are still a known hazard today, I was ready to leave this incident here, but a little more digging led me down some interesting further routes…
More recent online accounts mentioned that the Brescia incident led to legal changes in Great Britain in 1770 and 1772. Fortunately, the Library has a few shelves filled with tomes of Statute Books from the reign of George III, so, for the first time, I dived into these and found them both:
On the left, we have the original act from 1770, which was their first attempt at properly regulating the amount of gunpowder that could be held in one place, and the follow-up from 1772 when they realised that they had forgotten to regulate the actual manufacture of gunpowder (a brilliant quote from the full text of the Act reads “the Act passed in the last session contains no Provision for regulating the making of Gunpowder, and is in other Respects defective”). Both acts set out maximum quantities that could be held, which reduced in close proximity to towns and cities, as well as how much could be conveyed at once. The 1772 Act also added in regulations around who could manufacture gunpowder, as well as limiting the amount of charcoal that could be stored adjacent to gunpowder. Whilst neither Act directly references Brescia, it is clear from the content that the recent incident was foremost in the minds of those crafting these new laws, a hypothesis further strengthened with our final piece of evidence from the Library and the appearance of a man whom I think you’ll know.
Benjamin Franklin is rightly lauded for a life incredibly well lived, with his political, diplomatic and scientific achievements all very well documented. At the Library, we have a six volume set of the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin and within the final volume, there is a letter outlining his recommendations for the improvements to the lightning protection that should be made to the Royal Magazine at Purfleet, which had been built in 1764. Within this letter, shown below, he refers to the incident at Brescia to highlight the necessity of protecting gunpowder magazines from the dangers of a lightning strike. He describes a number of measures that he suggests should be put in place to ensure the security of the gunpowder magazine, as well as referring to experimental work carried out not just in the UK, but also in the colonies only a few short years before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
So to conclude, there are lessons to be learned from the past that still have direct relevance to us today. There was a colliery explosion in Turkey in October 2022 that killed at least 42 people due to a methane explosion and a lightning bolt struck a fuel oil storage tank in Cuba in August 2022, killing 17 firefighters. The lessons learned from history through the deaths of hundreds people are still so easily forgotten today; what other stories lie buried within the volumes on the shelves of Innerpeffray Library?
2023 marks the tercentenary of the birth of Adam Smith, the celebrated Scottish philosopher, political economist, author and leading participant in the Scottish Enlightenment. Events are taking place in many places, but particularly in Scotland, to mark the life of the man whose pioneering work and thinking on political economy influenced individuals, organisations and governments to think again about how a nation’s wealth is built and developed. Today, many would call Smith the father of capitalism and free market thinking.
by James Tassie, glass paste medallion, 1787 Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence granted by the National Portrait Gallery, London.
To mark the tercentenary the following post will share information about two editions of Smith’s most famous work, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations, which are on the shelves of the Library of Innerpeffray.
Smith spent many years studying economics, trade and business before writing The Wealth of Nations and the final text covered subjects such as the division of labour, growth and productivity, competition, laissez-faire systems, free trade and free markets. He also included his thoughts on empire, colonialism and slavery and proposed schemes for both a gradual devolution of the British Empire and a theoretical scheme for imperial federation. These schemes left an ambiguous legacy that affected political and economic debate on empire for a very long time.
The Wealth of Nations influenced many economic thinkers, perhaps most famously, Karl Marx. But where Smith’s thinking on social evolution centred on human nature and the individual’s desire for self-betterment, Marx concentrated on social change being engineered through a struggle between different socio-economic classes.
Five editions of the book were published in Adam Smith’s lifetime and he added corrections and footnotes to some of these; many other editions were published after his death in 1790.
The Innerpeffray Acquisitions
Many of the library’s 18th century books were acquired at the instigation of Robert Hay Drummond (RHD), who inherited the Innerpeffray estate and thereby responsibility for the Library of Innerpeffray. RHD died in 1776, the year of publication of The Wealth of Nations, and no copy of it had been bought for his collection. In 2008 a local man, Tony Murray of Dollerie, Laird of Crieff and a Friend of Innerpeffray Library, donated his copy of the book (in three volumes) via a long-term loan to the library, to rectify this significant absence from the collection. It is an eleventh edition published in London in 1805 by T. Cadell and W.Davies.
Title Page and Advertisement of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations 11th edition 1805
The eleventh edition contains a page reprinted from the fourth edition where Smith wrote ‘an ‘advertisement’ about the contribution of information from Mr. Henry Hope of the Bank of Amsterdam. Hope was an important merchant banker in Holland and, it would seem, provided information that was important enough to Smith to warrant a very specific acknowledgement.
In 2013 the library received an important gift from an American bibliophile of Scottish descent, Janet Burns St Germain. Amongst this donation was a copy of the second continental edition of The Wealth of Nations, in four volumes. This edition was published in 1801 by James Decker (of Basle) and the Levrault brothers (of Paris) and it was the only edition to include an English translation of ‘Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches’ by the French economist and administrator, Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l’Aulne.
Turgot’s book, published in 1766, had a great influence upon Adam Smith and has been described as “…the best work on the science published previous to the Wealth of Nations.”
In his youth Turgot was influenced by scientific curiosity, liberalism, tolerance and social evolution. He became friendly with philosophers of the school of physiocratic thought, which is now generally regarded as being the first scientific school of economics.
He was a talented and reforming administrator who served both Louis XV and Louis XVI. His attempts to reform France’s finances over his years of service to the crown were blocked by the privileged classes of France and he eventually fell out of favour with Louis XVI.
The Life and Times of Adam Smith
Smith was born in 1723 to Adam Smith (Senior), a Comptroller of Customs in Kirkcaldy, and Margaret Douglas, the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Little is known of his early life other than a report that when he was four years old when he was four years old he was allegedly “abducted by gypsies” and then rescued.
His early education took place in Kirkcaldy and from there he went on, aged 14, to the University of Glasgow, an institution that was already centrally placed within the Scottish Enlightenment. At Glasgow, Smith became influenced by Francis Hutcheson, Professor of Moral Philosophy, who was an exponent of a theory that a person’s ‘moral sense’ could help them to make the right decisions and take appropriate actions in life. This influence played a part in Smith’s later work where he included aspects on human nature in his writing. For instance, in The Wealth of Nations he considers the struggle of the inner man “the impartial approval or condemnation of personal/others’ actions with a voice impossible to disregard” versus individual desire for self-interest or self-preservation.
In 1740, Smith graduated and gained a scholarship to Balliol College at the University of Oxford. He found life there less stimulating than at Glasgow and spent much of his time in self-education, largely in classical and contemporary philosophy. Six years later he gave a series of lectures in Edinburgh on rhetoric, history and economics, impressing his contemporaries in the process.
In 1751, aged 27, Smith was appointed by the University of Glasgow to the position of Professor of Logic and within two years he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy, a subject that covered theology, ethics, jurisprudence and political economy. Smith threw himself into his work at the University, teaching up to 90 students (aged 14-16) at a time. He taught them in English not Latin, a precedent which had been set by his own professor, Francis Hutcheson.
Smith also participated in Glasgow society, mixing with aristocrats, scientists, intellectuals and leading members of the Enlightenment, e.g., the philosopher David Hume, engineer James Watt, and Joseph Black, a pioneer in chemistry. Smith also met Robert Foulis, an important printer and publisher (who was also taught by Francis Hutcheson), and merchants and businessmen who were involved in colonial trade such as Andrew Cochrane, the founder of the Political Economy Club. These businessmen gave Smith important insights into the world of business and they influenced the ‘real world’ feel to the writing of the Wealth of Nations.
Smith’s life in Glasgow was a good one, both professionally and socially, and he described his time there as ‘…the happiest and most honourable period of my life.’ He published his first book “The Theory of Moral Sentiments’ in 1759.
In 1760, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts and in 1762 the university deferred the title LL.D upon him; but the following year he gave up his position to become a private tutor. He took up a role as tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch which was well paid and involved travelling to France where he met writer and philosopher Voltaire, economist and physician Quesney and Turgot, whose influence has already been commented upon above.
Smith returned to Britain in 1766 and for a period of years lived both in London and Kirkcaldy. During this time he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1773) and, of course, in 1776 published The Wealth of Nations, a book that had been at least ten years in the making. The book would bring him lasting fame and contribute not only to a new style of economic thinking but also to the rise of classical liberalism, a doctrine which held that governments should protect individual freedoms and liberties and protect people from the harmful actions of others.
Whilst he was living in Kirkcaldy, Smith spent much time caring for his mother; she died in 1784 when he was sixty-one. He did have an active social life during this time, visiting with and entertaining friends such as Irish statesmen and philosopher Edmund Burke, geologist James Hutton and two Prime Ministers- Lord North and Pitt the Younger. Stimulating company indeed! Additionally he took an active role in learned organisations such as the Oyster Club, the Poker Club and the Select Society; his friend and Enlightenment philosopher David Hume was also a member of the latter.
In his later years Smith was appointed in 1778 as Commissioner of His Majesty’s Customs in Scotland and moved back to Edinburgh. This appointment could be seen as somewhat ironic- a prominent advocate of free trade was now in charge of enforcing government rules and regulations on commerce. But Smith was never a complete economic libertarian and his father had been in the same trade, so the acceptance of the appointment is not wholly surprising. In 1783 he helped to found the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1787 the University of Glasgow appointed him as Lord Rector, an appointment he held until his death.
Adam Smith never married or had children though he did have a love interest during his young adult life; Dugald Stewart reports that she was ‘a young lady of great beauty and accomplishment.’ Her name is not known and neither is it known why a marriage did not result from the relationship.
He died in July 1790 and is buried at Canongate in Edinburgh.
Adam Smith led an extraordinary life: the life of an intellectual, a pioneer, and a participant in one of the greatest periods of progress and innovation the world has seen.
He left a legacy that is still recognised as important and books that are still read by students and people with an interest in economics, social history and politics. Organisations which he helped to found and/or promote still exist and prosper, statues have been erected, modern economic thinktanks are named after him and he is listed as a great Scot by many national organisations and media outlets. Three hundred years have passed since Adam Smith was born but I suspect that his intellectual legacy and importance is such that he will be remembered for many hundreds of years to come.
Today’s blog on the use of nicknames in the Innerpeffray visitors’ books is inspired by a recent discovery of a 1965 visitor to Innerpeffray, who signed their entry ‘Littel Elf’!
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 5, f.275v.
In the Innerpeffray visitors’ book of September 1965, there are a series of entries by the Hall family from Dundee. After Caroline and Rosalind (in what look like children’s handwriting), and before Daphne M., appears ‘Littel elf’. The question arose – who or what was this ‘Littel elf’? A small child would be my first guess, although it could also be an entry written on behalf of a family pet or child’s toy.
Alan McNee discusses some equally fantastical fictitious names in his 2020 article on visitors’ books, including the following two entries from the nineteenth-century Athole Arms Hotel visitors’ book in Blair Atholl: “Mr & Mrs Bogie Man & Woman & son” and “Podgy Wodgy, Ayry Fairy & Hoppety Poppety”.[i]Like McNee’s examples, the signature of ‘Littel Elf’ demonstrates the interesting relationship between visitors and visitors’ books. McNee goes on to write that the “visitors’ book was one of the very few places where an ordinary tourist, lacking the cultural capital to be published in print, could share her or his thoughts”.[ii]
Visitors’ books are not legal documents, where visitors are required by law to include their full and accurate details. By entering the name ‘Littel elf’ in the Innerpeffray visitors’ book, it has become part of a public record and part of our history. Whether a child’s toy or playful nickname, that moment of joy has been recorded in writing and will be remembered. It also got me thinking about other signatures in the visitors’ books which feature shortened or alternative names.
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 4, f.15v
Turning to the twentieth century, an entry in the Innerpeffray visitors’ books from 30th September 1926 reads: ‘Bing Crosby – America’. While we have no further evidence to prove that Bing Crosby did indeed visit the library, there is also no reason to disbelieve this entry. In 1926, at the very start of his career, ‘Bing Crosby’ was not such a well-known name that there would have been any reason for someone to write a false entry. Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby Jr. (1903-1977) was an American singer, actor, entertainer and businessman, perhaps most famous for his version of the song ‘White Christmas’ which appeared in the films Holiday Inn (1942) and White Christmas (1954).
White Christmas Vinyl (1982)
A keen golfer whose “passion for golf nearly equaled his love of performing”, it seems likely that Crosby was visiting and staying at the nearby Gleneagles Hotel, which had opened with much fanfare two years prior.[iii]
Reports vary on how Crosby received his iconic nickname – some say he received it as a joke from a teacher, others from his penchant for playing cops and robbers, and the most widely shared story is that it comes from a comic strip.
Newspaper Clipping from ‘The Binghamton Press’ (Binghamton, New York, 1 February 1932)
In 1932, the New York ‘Binghamton Press’ confirmed the latter, quoting Crosby’s mother, Mrs. E. L. Crosby: “When Harry was about seven years old, [a] neighbor boy started calling him ‘Bingville’ after the title of a newspaper comic. The name quickly was shortened to ‘Bingo,’ and finally ‘Bing.’”[iv] Published from c.1901 to 1934, Newton Newkirk’s column and comic ‘The Bingville Bugle’ detailed the hilarious exploits of the fictional town of Bingville.
‘The Bingville Bugle’, The Topeka State Journal (Topeka, Kansas, 6 March 1915), Home Edition, Image 10 in Library of Congress (ed). Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
By the age of 23, when Crosby visited Innerpeffray Library, he was more ‘Bing’ than he ever had been ‘Harry’.
Another notable use of a nickname in the visitors’ books is that of Lady Isabel Galloway Emslie Hutton (1887-1960), who signed her name in 1907 as ‘Bell G. Emslie’.
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 3, f.22r
One of the innovators featured in Innerpeffray’s 2022 exhibition, Emslie Hutton was a trailblazing doctor who worked with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in France, Greece and Serbia during the First World War. In 1920, she worked with Lady Muriel Paget’s Child Welfare Scheme to house almost 140,000 Crimean refugees and orphaned children, and she is one of the only women (alongside Dr. Elsie Inglis) to have been awarded the Serbian Order of the White Eagle medal, the highest military honour bestowed by Serbia.
Visiting Innerpeffray at only 19 and before her illustrious career took off, Emslie Hutton signed her name in the visitors’ books as ‘Bell’ – perhaps using a family nickname since she was travelling with her parents. Funnily enough, in this instance, the use of a nickname almost prevented me from finding out more about her. What first brought her entry to my attention was her father’s signature, where James Emslie detailed that he was the Sub. Keeper of the Privy Seal in Scotland. Only after researching James Emslie did I find the link to his daughter.
The Innerpeffray visitors’ books record the names of thousands of visitors to the library from 1857. The first volume alone contains approximately 9,855 signatures – with a vast array of different naming practices. Whether nicknames, pet names or fond family jokes, the visitors’ books record them all.
Now, ‘Little Elf’ can join the ‘Innerpeffairies’ (inspired by a misspelling of ‘Innerpeffray’ in an 1868 visitors’ book entry) as an unofficial library mascot!
Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 1, f.168r. “Mrs Monteith Innerpeffairy”
‘Innerpeffairy’ badges, now available in the gift shop!
‘Galanthus Innerpeffairy’, created by Innerpeffray volunteer Gillean Ford
Isla Macfarlane, PhD Candidate
[i] Alan McNee, ‘‘Arry and “Arriet ‘out on a Spree’: Trippers, Tourists and Travellers Writing in Late-Victorian Visitors” Books’, Studies in Travel Writing, 24.2 (2020), 142–56 (p. 149) <https://doi.org/10.1080/13645145.2020.1847836>.
[iii] Richard West and Ted Thackrey Jr., ‘From the Archives: Bing Crosby Dies at 73 on Golf Course’, Los Angeles Times, 1977 <https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-bing-crosby-19771015-story.html>.
[iv] ‘Harry Crosby Got Nickname From Cartoon’, The Binghamton Press (Binghamton, New York, 1 February 1932), Monday Evening edition, p. 17.
Back in December 2022, I headed to Manchester for a whirlwind day tour of some of its prestigious libraries! On the day I was lucky enough to take part in a tour of Chetham’s Library and spend a little time researching at the Portico Library. Unfortunately I was in Manchester on a day when the John Rylands Library was closed, but I did pop in to Manchester’s Central Library to visit The Reading Girl statue by Giovanni Ciniselli (1832-1883):
“She was bought in Italy by Daniel Adamson, the first chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal Company, and given to the library by his family in 1938. There is a bit of a mystery about what she is reading – we know that it was originally a poem called The Angel’s Story which was printed on paper and pasted into her marble book but, by the time she came to the library, this had disappeared and we have never been able to trace the poem since.”[1]
Chetham’s Library, founded in 1653 by Humphrey Chetham (1580-1653), is the oldest public library in the English speaking world. With more than 100,000 printed books, over 1,000 manuscript volumes and thousands more archival documents housed in a series of stunning medieval buildings on the site of the original Manchester Castle, Chetham’s is well worth a visit.
Founded only 27 years later, in 1680, the Library of Innerpeffray shares many similarities with Chetham’s. While Chetham’s is the oldest surviving public library in England, Innerpeffray was the first free lending library in Scotland. Both libraries were founded, alongside associated schools, by noblemen who left money for the purpose in their wills. In Humphrey Chetham’s 1651 will, it states that the library should be open “for the use of schollars and others well affected”, with the Keeper told to “require nothing of any man that cometh into the library”.[2] In the 1680 will of Innerpeffray’s founder, David Drummond, third Lord Madderty, similar sentiments are shared, with the library established “for the benefit and encouragement of Young Students”.[3]
Some additional highlights of my tour included seeing the surviving chained parish libraries and medieval cat flaps!
The next library on my tour was The Portico Library, a beautiful independent nineteenth-century subscription library, founded in 1806. William Gaskell, minister and husband of author Elizabeth Gaskell, was Chair of the Portico between 1849 and 1884 and visited Innerpeffray Library with Beatrix Potter’s parents in 1869.[4]
William Gaskell’s signature in the 1837-1853 Strangers’ Book, introducing W. M. James Esquire from London to the Portico on 25th October 1849.
Rupert Potter’s entry in the Innerpeffray Visitors’ Book, 13th August 1869, listing Reverend William Gaskell of Manchester in attendance. Visitors’ Book Volume 1, f.16v
The staff at the Portico very kindly let me have a look at a couple of their Strangers’ Books – books which recorded details of visitors and readers from outside Manchester who were introduced and vouched for by members.[5]
The instructions read: “Any stranger not residing within five miles from Manchester, and not having an establishment, either commercial or otherwise, in town, may be admitted into the rooms for one calendar month, on being recommended by two proprietors, in their own handwriting…”
“At times, the books resemble a list of characters from a Boy’s Own adventure story, with mountaineers, palaeontologists, Irish cavalry officers and Napoleonic War luminaries all passing through the old entrance on Mosley Street. There are records of visitors from around the globe, as far as Rio de Janeiro, Old Calabar (Akwa Akpa), Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Tasmania.”[6]
Although I wish I could have stayed for longer, I briefly looked at two volumes, covering the periods 1837-1855 and 1853-1873. Even with just a quick glance through the names listed in the volumes, there were multiple entries signed by visitors from Perthshire and other parts of Scotland. I’m sure a future comparison with the Innerpeffray visitors’ books would be very interesting! Hopefully I can plan out a full research trip to the Portico one day in the future (and finally get in to John Rylands!)
