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history SCOTLAND

Welcome to March/April History Scotland and I hope

HISTORY NEWS: Mummy conservation work to go on show

Visitors to Perth Museum and Art Gallery can now watch live as conservators perform the delicate task of treating museum objects inside a purpose-built conservation studio

THE HISTORY SCOTLAND LECTURES

With 2020 marking seven centuries since the creation of the Declaration of Arbroath, the famous statement of Scottish nationhood written during the Wars of Independence, the next instalment of the popular History Scotland Lectures will explore the making of this iconic document

THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH

2020 is the 700th anniversary of what is widely considered to be Scotland’s most iconic document: the Declaration of Arbroath, which will be displayed in Edinburgh this spring

POSSIBLE BRONZE AGE FIGURES UNEARTHED IN ORKNEY

A team of archaeologists working at Finstown in Orkney has discovered a series of half-metretall stone-carved objects which appear to date from the late Neolithic or early bronze age

PLAYGROUND PREHISTORY

Kenneth Brophy and Ian Hamilton spotlight a community archaeology project in Perth and Kinross that has reconnected a community with its ancient and invisible heritage

Isobel Watson: FAIRIES AND WITCHCRAFT IN 16TH-CENTURY PERTHSHIRE

Ciaran Jones presents the tale of Isobel Watson, a middle-aged medical practitioner who was the focus of one of Scotland’s first witch trials, when an investigation into superstitious magic spiralled into tales of violent and traumatic visits to fairyland and encounters with the devil

Patrick Sellar’s Culmaily: a model of improvement

Long notorious as an agent of clearance on the Sutherland estates, Patrick Sellar was also a landholder himself, and attempted to implement ‘improving’ agricultural practices on the estate of Culmaily, near Dornoch. Duncan Simpson considers his record

£300,000 funding announced for ‘innovative’ museum projects

As a new decade begins, nine projects around the country have been awarded a share of 300k of funding from Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS), the national development body for Scotland’s museums

The Roman artillery in Scotland

John Richardson of The Antonine Guard living history society explores the weapons used by Roman troops in Scotland after the establishment of military bases from 79AD

Parasites: Battle for Survival

A look at Scotland’s historic - and current - role in medical research around tropical parasitic diseases. By Sophie Goggins, Curator of Biomedical Science at National Museums Scotland

‘It started off in Fife, it ended up in tears’ Scotland and the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648

Beginning a two-part series, Professor Steve Murdoch explores the role of Scotland and the Scots in the Thirty Years War, the great continental conflict that raged between 1618 and 1648, profoundly shaping the future of all Europe

THE LOYAL REBEL

Denis Frize recounts the extraordinary life of James Johnstone, rebel against George II, aide-de-camp to Charles Edward Stuart, and loyal chevalier to Louis XV of France in his struggle for Canada

PABAY: Skye’s jurassic island

Professor Christopher A. Whatley reflects on the history of Pabay, a small island off the coast of Skye whose unusually rich fossil record gave it a surprisingly prominent role in the development of professional geology

In the next issue ofhistory SCOTLAND

The fascinating story of an epic 1811 cattle drove

…THE WOLF OF BADENOCH

History Scotland’s consultant editor, Dr Allan Kennedy, looks into the life and legend of Alexander Stewart, the infamous ‘wolf of Badenoch’, whose activities in the late 14th century earned him an enduringly black reputation

ARTHUR JOHN BROCK’S NORTH QUEENSFERRY: THE FIRST CHAPTER

In this edition of Hidden Histories, Neil McLennan follows in the footsteps of Edinburgh doctor Arthur John Brock, who set up a medical facility in North Queensferry to aid World War I veterans, and wrote the town’s history

Arbroath 700

2020 marks the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, with several high-profile celebratory events, from a horse-drawn procession to a rare display of this iconic medieval document

A life to remember

Shaun Wallace reflects on a new assessment of the 1846 visit to Scotland by the abolitionist Frederick Douglass

The great hunger

Sandy Thomson discusses an exposé of how Scottish communities battled hardship during the 1846-47 potato famine

FAREWELL TO FRANCE

A grieving Mary Queen of Scots bids farewell to her childhood home after the death of her husband Francis II in this 19th-century oil painting

Spotlight on… Loch Ard Local History Group

The Loch Ard Local History Group which serves the communities

A NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD VILLAIN

Dr Annie Tindley introduces a volume of papers that give us a new insight into the work of Patrick Sellar – rightly condemned for his heartless behaviour during the clearances – but shown here in a wider context as a farmer and estate manager

FINAL WORD

Dr Catherine Eagleton, Director of Museums, University of St Andrews, talks to us about the newly-named Wardlaw Museum at the University of St Andrews, which is due to be revealed to the public this spring