National recognition of excellence for Nuclear and Caithness Archive

history SCOTLAND

Welcome to May/June History Scotland and we'd like

Scotland’s first zoo

Steve Ward charts the early years of Edward Henry Bostock’s Scottish Zoo and Variety Circus, an establishment ahead of its time in terms of marketing and promotions - and operating in an age when zoos were places to see performing animals, rather than centres for breeding and conservation

HISTORY NEWS New Carnegie portrait unveiled

The first portrait of Andrew Carnegie in almost 40 years has been unveiled at the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum in Dunfermline

Launch of major new international research project into early modern trade routes

Researchers will explore how Scottish communities traded with mainland Europe

National recognition for ‘trailblazing women’

Six remarkable women from Scotland’s past, from the country’s fi rst female solicitor to the fi rst Scottish woman to direct a feature-length fi lm, will be recognised by commemorative plaques

TALES FROM THE RING: Celebrating Scotland’s Boxing Heritage

Karl Magee showcases a project to create an archive of the sporting stars of the Scottish boxing community, shining a light on a hitherto little-studied aspect of the country’s sporting heritage

Excavating Kildavie A post-medieval township in north west Mull

Ian Hill of Heritage & Archaeological Research Practice presents the results of a six-year community archaeology project to explore the substantial remains of a small township near the north coast of Mull

TULLOCH STONE FIND bridges ‘crucial gap in knowledge’ of the country’s undocumented history

Archaeologists have recently recreated images of a figure on a Pictish stone, with the details uncovered offering new insights into Scotland’s warrior past

Devon, droves and Jacobites

Dr David Taylor reconstructs an epic, 650-mile cattle drove from Skye to Devon, completed in the spring of 1811, and finds behind this quixotic undertaking a fascinating insight into the rehabilitation of Jacobite families in the decades after Culloden

Providing for widows and orphans is pleasing to Almighty God’

Following last issue’s account of Scottish involvement in the Thirty Years War (1618-48), Professor Steve Murdoch and Dr Kathrin Zickermann report on the findings of the Scottish War Widows project, which seeks to reconstruct the experiences of Scottish women whose husbands were killed during the conflict

DUGALD CARMICHAEL: FROM SCHOOLBOY NATURALIST TO ISLAND EXPLORER

Dr Robert Hay explores the life of soldier, explorer and naturalist Dugald Carmichael, a modest man whose contributions to natural science have largely been forgotten, even on his native Isle of Lismore

New analysis of George Washington letter reveals US-Scotland connections

Fresh analysis of a handwritten text - sent to a Scottish nobleman to encourage recruitment of skilled workers to US president George Washington’s estate - underlines how seriously he took his duties as a landowner and farmer

My life as a replica

Dr Sally Foster and Professor Siân Jones introduce pioneering research focusing on the rich social lives of replicas, through a study of the 8th-century St John’s Cross, Iona, and its copies

THE SCOTTISH LIBRARY benefactions of Andrew Carnegie

Dunfermline-born industrialist Andrew Carnegie left an indelible legacy on numerous Scottish towns and cities through his programme of endowing public libraries. Dr John Crawford explores Carnegie’s motivation and achievements

How did the Vikings see christianity?

Jorge Lazo de la Vega Breton explores Viking attitudes towards christianity in Scotland and the wider British isles, suggesting that conversion may have been regarded as a benign shift in social customs that allowed Viking immigrants to integrate peacefully into their new homes

Putting Scotland’s accused witches on the map

Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh, charts the creation of an interactive map of over 3,000 accused witches, created as the result of a multi-media project based on the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft database

THEY WENT TO CANADA…

Christine Woodcock takes a look at how to find out more about the lives of Scottish ancestors who moved to Canada, whether with the military, through business or as part of a settlement scheme

THE HAMILTON QUADRUPLETS

Veronica Moffat explores records connected to a remarkable multi-birth that made the press

Voices from the past

Sarah Moxeyenjoys a long-awaited oral history of Scotswomen’s World War II experiences

Scotland on the front line

Rebecca Hayre_ ects on an ambitious new account of Scotland’s involvement in the Cold War

…THE GEORGE SQUARE RIOT, 1919

History Scotland’s consultant editor, Dr Allan Kennedy, recounts the legendary ‘battle of George Square’ of January 1919, regarded by some at the time as the closest Britain even came to a bolshevik coup

Spotlight on… Appin Historical Society

The peninsula of Appin is a coastal district of the

Wartime records

Ken Nisbet takes a look at resources for finding out more about ancestors who served in the Second World War, showing how detailed records of service, awards and gallantry can be discovered with a little ingenuity

THE ‘WITCH’ WHO WALKED FREE

Dr Annie Tindley explores a text that tells the story of Geillis Johnstone, a Musselburgh woman accused of witchcraft who managed to walk free from the courts after almost fi ve years of legal trials

FINAL WORD

Professor Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor and Pro Vice-Principal at the University of Glasgow, talks to History Scotland about the findings of a major research project he headed, which assessed to what extent the global fascination with Robert Burns supports Scottish businesses and jobs