visitors Archives - Innerpeffray Library

Posted on August 2, 2024August 2, 2024 by innerpeffray_admin

Visitor Vignettes: Elsie Inglis and Isabel Emslie Hutton

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.

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.

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 The Daily 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.

Beyond the TrenchFor Elsie Inglis"In murderous blasts of pointless, bloody wartrenches swilled with the misery of humanityand death was stoically accepted by our boys,Sons and Lovers - the fire of a generation fading.Aye, Elsie - no place for a wee lassie... is that right?Her head bowed not in defeat but determination.She couldn't hear the Generals pathetic guff bellow.She could only hear pulses of decency to overcomethe weight of gold braided blinkers and ostrichfeathered hat misogyny pulling her back to hearth.Ay, Beatson and aa yer cronies o blinkert rank, doye think ony o oor puir sufferin bairn-sodgers,cared a jot for yer foosty machinations? Naw!And the White Eagle circled overthe woman with the torch - turning hercourage and compassion into a million Elsie's born."Jim Mackintosh — 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.

[6] Emslie Hutton, p. 132.

[7] Emslie Hutton, p. 262.

[8] George Chamier, The First Light: The Story of Innerpeffray (Library of Innerpeffray, 2009), p. 66.

Posted on May 9, 2024August 29, 2024 by innerpeffray_admin

Visitor Vignettes: The Reverend Hugh Aird

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.

NLS Acc.13951(ii), printed obituary entitled ‘In Memoriam. Rev. Hugh Aird, M.A., D.D.’

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.

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]

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].

[3] ‘In Memoriam. Rev. Hugh Aird, M.A., D.D., Brechin’, 1895, NLS, Acc.13951(ii).

[4] The Psalmes of David in Metre, with Divers Notes, and Tunes Augmented to Them. (Middelburgh: Richard Schilders, 1594), The Library of Innerpeffray.

Posted on June 30, 2022August 29, 2024 by innerpeffray_admin

Visitor Vignettes: Adam White

Welcome back to our Visitor Vignette series, today focusing on Adam White (1817-1878), Zoological Assistant at the British Museum.

‘Portrait of Adam White, aged 42, three-quarter length standing to left, in evening dress, with book in his right; in arch. 1858.’
Photographed by Maull & Polyblank, 55, Gracechurch Street, and 187a, Piccadilly, London.
“Adam White æt. 42. 7. Oct. 1858” © The Trustees of the British Museum.

While the vast majority of entries in the Innerpeffray visitors’ books are purely factual (with limited details such as the date, visitors’ names, their places of residence and occasionally their occupations), there are a few extended entries which provide additional information and so enable exact identification of their author. The portrait above shows naturalist Adam White, aged 42, likely taken as part of photography firm Maull and Polyblank’s ‘Literary and Scientific Portrait Club’ series, which was issued in forty monthly parts from 1856-1859.^[i] Although the book title is too faint to decipher, I imagine that White is holding either one of his own publications or another influential zoological text.

Seven years after this portrait was taken, on Tuesday 26^th September 1865, Adam White visited the Library of Innerpeffray and inscribed a rare extended entry in its visitors’ book. In addition to his name and the date of his visit, White includes his past occupation, current address, and details about his visit to the library, revealing that he “spent many hours” there.

His entry, pictured above, reads: “Adam White, for 27 years an assistant in the Zoological Department, British Museum, spent many hours this day in the Library at Innerpeffray.” In the margin, underneath the date, he also adds, “& now resident 11. N. Melville Place, Edinburgh.” Had White only written a standard entry, with the date, his (fairly commonplace) name, and perhaps ‘Edinburgh’ as his location, it would likely have been much harder, if not impossible, to identify and discover more about him. But since we do have the extra information from his entry, we can actually find out quite a lot about Adam White – including details of a second visit to Innerpeffray within one of his written publications.

Although there is no trace of a second entry by him in the visitors’ book, we know that White visited the Library of Innerpeffray on at least two occasions. Published in the monthly periodical Good Words, White’s article on ‘Spiders’ reads:

“Come with me to that well-known point in Strathearn, called Whitehill, on an autumn morning. The sun is breaking through the mist, which conceals the lovely prospect all around. The view of the country, from the Ochils to the Grampians, from “fair” Perth to the woods of Strathallan and Drummond Castle, is spread out before you, but hidden. […] I was on my way to examine for a second time, the curious library of Lord Maderty at Innerpeffray, where are many books that belonged to the great Marquis of Montrose.”
Adam White, ‘Spiders’, Good Words, 7 (1866), 212-16 (p. 213).

Born in Edinburgh on 29^th April 1817 to Mary Ann (née Gellatly) and Thomas White and educated at Edinburgh’s Royal High School, our young Zoologist started work at the British Museum in London in 1835, at the age of 18. Working alongside influential naturalists such as John George Children (1777-1852), John Edward Gray (1800-1875), and Edward Doubleday (1810-1849), White was mainly involved in identifying, naming and cataloguing arachnids, beetles, insects, and crustaceans. A prolific writer, White published a multitude of books and papers about his zoological findings, with biographer Ann Datta estimating that he produced “more than sixty scientific papers” in the twenty-eight years between 1839 and 1867.^[ii] White also wrote on non-scientific matters, and between 1847 and 1851 he spearheaded the campaign for the creation of a National Museum of Scotland, penning many letters to politicians and members of the Edinburgh press.^[iii]

Despite working in the Zoological Department for 27 years, White never rose above the position of Zoological Assistant – a snub which his biographers claim was “due to real or imagined difficulties with his superior,” John Edward Grey. Nevertheless, White had an excellent reputation as “an active and effective curator” and was a candidate for various professorial jobs in Edinburgh before and after he retired from the British Museum due to ill health in 1863. Indeed, two years after leaving the British Museum and in the same year as his first visit to Innerpeffray, he printed a pamphlet filled with testimonials for future employers. One of these letters of recommendation was written by no less than Charles Darwin, for whom White had catalogued some of the arachnids collected during his journey on the H.M.S. Beagle. Darwin’s letter, written at his home in Kent on the 26^th December 1851, reads:

My Dear Sir,
I have much pleasure in expressing my high opinion of your Zoological attainments; and your great zeal for every branch of Natural History must strike all who are acquainted with you.
Your papers in the scientific journals show how successfully you have worked out original materials. I have often had occasion to visit the working department in the British Museum, and I have invariably found you, permit me to add, most zealous and obliging in your endeavours to aid me in every possible way, and in giving me all the information in your power.
You are at full liberty to show this letter to any one; and I beg to remain, my dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
Charles Darwin, Esq.
Charles Darwin to Adam White, ‘Letter No. 1466’, 26 December 1851, Darwin Correspondence Project

White did not only correspond with Darwin, and the letter above is just one example of correspondence with notable nineteenth-century figures. In May 1907, O. J. Stevenson wrote an article for The Canadian Magazine, on ‘The Eccentricities of Genius,’ with extracts from a series of letters from White’s archive, then in the possession of a relative in Toronto.^[iv] The article reveals that in 1847, White took it on himself to promote a proposed memorial of English poet William Cowper in Westminster Abbey by writing to individuals including Charles Dickens and William Wordsworth to ask for their support. (While Dickens refused “point blank to sympathise with [the] proposal”, Wordsworth was exceedingly supportive and “even offered to increase the amount of his contribution should it be found necessary.”)^[v] Stevenson also includes a letter from Wordsworth to White in 1844, wherein Wordsworth agreed to be quoted in a future publication: “I should deem it an honour to have any extracts from my poems inserted in such a book, as I have no doubt yours will prove.”

*Mr. Adam* *White, from an 1846 pencil sketch by Scottish artist Norman Macbeth,*
*as featured in ‘The Canadian Magazine’, May 1907, p. 7.*

In 1865-66, White wrote letters to both Alfred Tennyson and Coventry Patmore enquiring “as to their opinion of the value of natural history as a subject of the school course”. Patmore’s personal response infers that he had crossed paths with White while they both worked at the British Museum – White having retired a few years prior and Patmore a few weeks away from retiring from his Assistant Librarian position.

British Museum, Dec. 4, 1865.
My Dear White, —I and my children have been delighted with your lucubrations in natural history. I entirely think with you as to the utility of obtaining, if possible, a place for natural history in the ordinary educational course. It is a study of which even a smattering is an advantage. Almost everything one learns concerning our fellow creatures of the field and air increases our friendship for them and our pleasure in their society. Some day you must come and see my bird cage; it contains fifty-four little fellows from all parts of the world, living together on excellent terms.
Yours most truly,
Coventry Patmore.
As featured in O. J. Stevenson, ‘The Eccentricities of Genius’, The Canadian Magazine, May 1907, pp. 7-8.

‘Adam White, when old, half-length to left, with large beard and bald pate.’
“British Museum Print Room, care of Mr Reid from Adam White, in the Museum from Nov 1835 to April 1862…”
© The Trustees of the British Museum.

When Adam White died in Glasgow on 30^th December 1878, he was a highly regarded curator and writer with an admirable scientific reputation. He had authored a library’s worth of papers, articles, and books; enjoyed membership of exclusive groups such as the Linnean Society, the Entomological Society of London, and the Botanical Society of London; had corresponded with men such as Darwin, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Tennyson; and had personally furthered the scientific field of Natural History. Finally, in addition to himself naming numerous species of insects and arachnids, he was appropriately memorialised by John Obadiah Westwood, who named the ‘Taphroderes whitii’ in his honour:

I am indebted to A. White, Esq., the author of numerous valuable papers on Entomological subjects, for directing my attention to this very interesting insect in the Cabinet of the British Museum placed under his charge, and whose name I have much pleasure in associating with so curious a species.
J. O. Westwood, ‘The Cabinet of Oriental Entomology’, (London: William Smith, 1848), p. 32.

*Taphroderes Whitii, as illustrated in J. O. Westwood, The Cabinet of Oriental Entomology (London: William Smith, 1848), p.32.*

If you would like to read more about the Library of Innerpeffray visitors’ books, my first ever published article is now available open access (free to read!) in Studies in Travel Writing: ‘Visitors Visiting Books: visitors’ books at the Library of Innerpeffray’ <https://doi.org/10.1080/13645145.2022.2057387>. I also briefly mentioned Adam White in my first ever PhD blog back in October 2020, which you can find here if you missed it: https://borrowing.stir.ac.uk/visitors-at-innerpeffray-library-j-m-barrie-george-bernard-shaw-and-adam-white/

Isla Macfarlane, PhD Student

[i] ‘Maull’, The British Museum <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG165838> [accessed 28 June 2022].

[ii] Ann Datta, ‘White, Adam (1817-1878), Naturalist’, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[iii] E. G. Hancock, ‘Adam White’, in The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists, ed. by Bernard Lightman (London: Bloomsbury, 2004), iv, 2147–48.

[iv] O. J. Stevenson, ‘The Eccentricities of Genius’, The Canadian Magazine, May 1907, pp. 1–9.

[v] It appears that White’s appeal was not successful as, although there is a stained glass window in Westminster Abbey commemorating William Cowper, it was “Given by George William Childs, American citizen, 1876” – thirty years after White’s correspondence with prospective sponsors. (‘William Cowper’, Westminster Abbey Commemorations).

Works Cited:

‘Adam White’, The British Museum <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG162220> [accessed 29 June 2022]

Darwin, Charles. Letter to Adam White, ‘Letter No. 1466’, 26 December 1851, Darwin Correspondence Project <https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-1466.xml> [accessed 23 June 2022]

Datta, Ann, ‘White, Adam (1817-1878), Naturalist’, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29234> [accessed 22 June 2022]

Hancock, E. G., ‘Adam White’, in The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists, ed. by Bernard Lightman (London: Bloomsbury, 2004), iv, 2147–48

‘Innerpeffray Library Visitors’ Book Volume 1’ (Innerpeffray: Library of Innerpeffray, 1859-1897)

‘Literary and Scientific Portrait Club: Photographs by Maull & Polyblank, circa 1855’, National Portrait Gallery <https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/set/192/Literary+%26+scientific+club+by+Maull+%26+Polyblank> [accessed 29 June 2022]

‘Maull’, The British Museum <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG165838> [accessed 28 June 2022]

Stevenson, O. J., ‘The Eccentricities of Genius’, The Canadian Magazine, May 1907, 1–9, Toronto Public Library <https://archive.org/details/canadianmagazine29torouoft/> [accessed 29 June 2022]

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Posted on July 25, 2021August 29, 2024 by innerpeffray_admin

Beatrix Potter at Innerpeffray

As it is the 155^th anniversary of Beatrix Potter’s birth on the 28^th July 2021, we are celebrating by exploring some of the links between Beatrix Potter and the Library of Innerpeffray.

Helen Beatrix Potter Heelis (1866-1943) is remembered today as a respected mycology expert, one of the most popular children’s authors of the Victorian period, and the creator of unforgettable fictional characters including Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Squirrel Nutkin, and many more. Perhaps her most well-known book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was first conceived of while Beatrix was staying near Dunkeld in 1893. Writing a letter to the son of one of her former governesses, she came up with a story about “four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.” Little did she know then that Peter Rabbit would one day become a household name!

Beatrix Potter Letter to Noel Moore 1893 c. National Trust

It is a well-known fact that Beatrix Potter and her family spent many summer holidays in Perthshire, with her father, Rupert Potter, renting Dalguise House near Dunkeld every summer between 1871 and 1881.^[1] Interested in the sport and freedom of Scotland, with its plentiful shooting, fishing and beautiful opportunities for walking and photography, the extended Potter family often travelled away from London between May and October.^[2] Before becoming regular guests at Dalguise, we know that the Potters stayed with Edmund Potter near Alness in Easter Ross, and in Tulliemet House in 1870.^[3] Excitingly, we now have evidence from the Innerpeffray Library visitors’ books that the Potters also stayed in Scotland in 1868 and 1869.

On the 26^th August 1868, a month after Beatrix’s second birthday, the following signatures were entered into the visitors’ book:

Rupert Potter and Mrs. R Potter, Kippen, and Mrs. Leech and daughter, London.

Rupert Potter (1832-1914), Beatrix’s father, was a barrister and successful amateur photographer who married Beatrix’s mother, Helen Leech (1839-1932) on the 8^th August 1863. The Potters were visiting with Helen’s mother, Beatrix’s maternal grandmother, Jane Ashton (1806-1884) and one of her daughters, Beatrix’s aunt – most likely the eldest daughter of Mrs Leech, Jane (1833-1876), who never married and remained close to home. Although Mrs Leech and her daughter write their location as London, Rupert and Helen write that they were staying at Kippen Estate while visiting Scotland, rather than their usual London address. Although there is a village called Kippen in Stirlingshire, as below where the Potters wrote ‘Garvock’ to refer to Garvock House in Dunning, it seems more likely that they were referring to Kippen House, also in Dunning, which was built in the 1840s.

The following year, on the 13^th August 1869, we find the Potters returning to Innerpeffray for a second time, this time accompanied by Reverend William Gaskell as well as Mrs and Miss Leech:

Innerpeffray Visitors’ Books Vol 1, f.16v

Mrs and Miss Leech, London; Revd. W. Gaskell, Manchester; and Mr and Mrs Rupert Potter, Garvock and London.

In the summer of 1869, the Potter family was again holidaying with Beatrix’s maternal grandmother and aunt, as well as Unitarian minister and close friend of the family William Gaskell (1805-1884). It was common for the Victorian middle classes to “invite friends to join them on holiday,” and the Potters frequently invited friends and family to join them in Scotland – “especially those who liked to fish and who would endure Rupert’s endless photography sessions.”^[4] Gaskell was a close friend and teacher of Rupert Potter’s, having known Rupert’s father Edmund since his university days. Indeed, Jenny Uglow, biographer of William’s wife Elizabeth, states that William often joined the Potters on their annual summer holidays but never invited his wife to accompany him – she emphasizes that he “needed escape, less, one sometimes feels, from the city than from his growing family.”^[5] It appears that he preferred spending his leisure time with the Potters rather than his own family.

Photograph of Reverend William Gaskell and Beatrix Potter, taken during one of “Rupert’s endless photography sessions” in the grounds of Dalguise House

On this visit to Innerpeffray, the Potters recorded their location as both Garvock and London, indicating that their long-term residence was in London but at the present time they were staying in Garvock House while in Scotland.

The following month, the Potters visit Innerpeffray Library for the third time on the 6^th September 1869. Their entries in the visitors’ book reveal that although the Leeches were not present, the Potters were joined by Beatrix’s paternal grandfather, Edmund Potter (1802-1883), who writes his place of residence as his Hertfordshire home, Camfield Place:

Mr Edmund Potter M.P., Camfield, Hatfield, Herts; Mr. and Miss Potter, also from Camfield; and Mr and Mrs R Potter, Garvock.

It is clear from their three separate visits that Rupert and Helen Potter enjoyed their trips to Innerpeffray – dedicating time from two summer holidays to visit and on each occasion bringing a different visitor to see the library. Innerpeffray was an accessible tourist destination from both Garvock and Kippen by carriage, train or even bicycle – it would take around three hours to walk or one hour to cycle to the library from either location on modern roads. Although Innerpeffray was still easily accessible by train from Dalguise House, they must have considered it too long a journey, as the Potters do not appear again in the visitors’ books.

Map showing the locations of the Potters’ Scottish holiday residences in relation to Innerpeffray Library: Garvock, Kippen, and Dalguise House

Noticeably absent from all of these visitors’ book entries is Beatrix Potter herself! Aged two and three years old at the time of the respective visits, Beatrix may have been left at home with her nurse rather than joining her parents and grandparents at Innerpeffray Library. It is true that Beatrix often spoke of her lonely childhood, where she spent little time with her parents while in London, cared for instead by her nurses and governesses. However, Beatrix also wrote that her “happiest moments” were those spent in Scotland, where “she got extra attention from her father.”^[6] Perhaps, away from the stricter rules of London society, “where every activity was carefully regimented and supervised,” the Potters brought their daughter with them while touring Scotland.^[7]

Bookplate of Edmund Potter, Camfield Place.

From an early age, Beatrix was an intelligent young girl who was encouraged by friends and family to love stories and books. Reverend William Gaskell, who was a regular holiday companion and visited Innerpeffray with the Potters in August 1869, was chairman of the Portico Library in Manchester from 1849 to 1884 and was recorded as having borrowed more than 700 books between 1850 and 1859.^[8] Her grandfather Edmund Potter, who accompanied the Potters to Innerpeffray in September of that same year, had “built a reading room and library which was kept well stocked with books and newspapers.”^[9] Although her paternal grandmother, Jessy Crompton Potter, did not accompany her husband Edmund on his trip to Innerpeffray, Beatrix often wrote that she remembered “the stories told by her adoring grandmother” in the library of Camfield Place.^[10]With these bibliophile friends and relatives knowing the importance of books on young, impressionable minds, perhaps Beatrix was indeed brought to see the Library of Innerpeffray. Without her name written in the visitors’ books, we can only guess – but I for one would like to think so.

Isla Macfarlane, PhD Student

[1] Lynne McGeachie, Beatrix Potter’s Scotland: Her Perthshire Inspiration (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2010), p. 29.

[2] ‘Beatrix Potter Exhibition Garden’, Birnam Arts Visitor Attractions <https://www.birnamarts.com/visitor-tourist-attractions/beatrix-potter-exhibition-garden/>.

[3] Linda Lear, Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 27.

[4] Lear, pp. 22; 28.

[5] Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories, (London: Faber and Faber, 2010), p. 103.

[6] Lear, p. 28.

[7] Lear, p. 29.

[8] Barbara Brill and Alan Shelston, ‘Manchester: “A Behindhand Place for Books”: The Gaskells and the Portico Library’, The Gaskell Society Journal, 5 (1991), 27–36 (pp. 27–28) <https://www.jstor.org/stable/45185290>.

[9] Lear, p. 12.

[10] Lear, p. 10.