A taste of the Museum to come is available through a carefully curated range of items based on our collections and exhibitions. Working with local independent artists as well as our favourite contemporary pop master Philip Colbert, there’s an eclectic range of gifts and goodies.
If you’re still looking for Christmas gifts, looking at something unique, or just want to have a look at what the shop has, using our shop is a great support to the museum and the work that we do.
Supporting local business and artists is important to us as a museum shop, supporting the local economy and procuring products in an ethical and sustainable way are part of what we as part of the University strive for. So let’s meet some of the makers themselves!
Currently based in Perth, Sarah has been mentored by international artist Christopher Fiddes.
Sarah is a trained fine artist in oil who believes in bringing fine art to audiences on beautiful, yet useful, products. Frustrated by the inability to print her work without colour shifts, she started experimenting with Adobe Illustrator, which has allowed her to be able to print on textiles and other materials. Digital Art has enabled her to put her artwork on fabric and stationery much easier and she has been steadily expanding her range of products beyond her fine art.
Both Sarah and her producers are all based in the U.K. Sarah describes her work as, ‘Classic skills with a modern approach’.
From Sarah’s work, the shop has a range of products with an illustration of aerial perspective of the town of St Andrews inspired by the eary map of St Andrews by James Geddy.
Mark has been a Scottish based professional Artist since 2002 when he started his career in St Andrews.
He has exhibited in Galleries in Scotland, UK and undertaken commission work in Arnhem Hospital in Holland, and for a variety of clients in Europe. He was commissioned to
paint the feature painting for the entrance of the Castle Course Club house in St Andrews.
Mark works with Oils, Acrylics and Watercolours. Subjects range from Scottish west coast landscapes, St. Andrews, Venice, Classic Cars, and Skiing. Commissions are always welcomed, and Mark likes to provide clients with paintings that enhance new build projects.
From Mark’s work, the shop has a variety of different prints of different locations around St Andrews.
Chloe comes from a family of artists, and has such a love of vibrant colour, she describes ‘colour’ as her hobby. Her philosophy is that bright colours are uplifting and inspiring.
More recently, her inspirations have come from her surroundings from the Brazilian beach she used to live besides, to the Scottish cottage in Edinburgh where she now lived. Her new home is surrounded with the local nature, from the Snowdrops in February, a family of hedgehogs who live in her back garden and the beach right beside her house. During her time in Brazil, she came across a Beatriz Milhazes picture which inspired her even further, as it included bright colour and beautiful flowers.
From Chloe’s work the shop has a variety items with animal illustrations on them.
An Alumna of the University of St Andrews herself and a Fifer– Kay Anderson has long been inspired by the beauty of St Andrews and the coastal areas of Fife as well as the natural beauty further inland. Her love of the outdoors and the natural world is lovingly and painstakingly woven into her fused glass creations. Working away in the Shed, Kay’s creations include bold floral compositions, abstract pieces, natural imagery and quirky animal designs in a range of large and small framed pieces to small hanging decorations.
We hope in the future to extend the number of independent artists we work with, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at: [email protected].
The 30th November is a national bank holiday and special day – it is Scotland’s Official National Day to celebrate our patron saint; St Andrew.
It is also special as our lovely town and University is named after St Andrew, but do you know who he was? And how a small town on the East Coast of Fife came to be named after him?
Well let me enlighten you…
St Andrew, also known as Saint Andrew the Apostle, was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus and brother to St Peter. He was a fisherman and was called on with Peter by Jesus to be ’fishers of men’. He is also said to be the first disciple of Jesus.
Communion token showing St Andrews town arms and St Andrew crucified across a shield shaped Saltire (HC700) Courtesy of the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums
Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion, on an X shaped cross or saltire, hence the saltire cross of St Andrew on the Scottish national flag. An interesting fact, as well as Scotland’s patron saint, he is also one of Russia’s, Greece’s, and Barbados!
The remains of St Andrews were later taken to Patras in Greece. Legend then has it, that one of the monks there, St Regulus (also known as St Rule), was advised in a dream to hide some of the bones. The bones were moved from Patras to Constantinople on the orders of the Holy Roman Emperor Constanius II in or around 357 to sit in the Church of the Holy Apostles there.
St Regulus then had a second dream, where he was told by an angel to take some of the bones to ‘the ends of the earth’ to protect them and build a shrine there. He set off, taking a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers and a tooth from St Andrew to find a safe place for them.
His journey however did not go smoothly. St Rule was shipwrecked off the coast of Fife and brought the relics to our small town on the East Fife Coast. At that time, St Andrews was known as Kilrymont – church of the king’s mounth (mounth meaning a headland) and from what we gather, already a place of importance among the Celtic church.
St Rule then established a shrine with St Andrew’s bones at the site of where the St Andrews Cathedral now sits. St Rule’s Tower is named after him and as you all likely know, Regs Hall of Residence comes from St Regulus.
St Andrew, depicted on the head of the University Mace (HC1184) Courtesy of the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums
Although the legend is a great story, it is more likely that the relics were probably brought to Britain in 597 as part of the Augustine Mission, and then in 732 to Fife, by Bishop Acca of Hexham, a well-known collector of religious relics at the time.
St Rules Church was started in 1130 for a new order of Augustinian Priors who were based there. However, it soon became clear it would be too small and work on St Andrews Cathedral began in 1160. It was not consecrated until 1318 by Robert Bruce and it was the largest church, if not the largest building in all of Scotland. A fitting place to house the relics of St Andrew
The status of the town increased dramatically with the building of the Cathedral, and the name St Andrews became consistently attached to the town by about 1200, rather than the old name of Kilrymont, due to the growing cult attached to the bones of St Andrew being held at the Cathedral.
St Andrew however was not made the official patron saint of Scotland until 1320 at the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath, 2 years after St Andrews Cathedral was consecrated!
Wooden Sculpture of St Andrew. (HC2011.7) Courtesy of the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums
You may wonder where the relics of St Andrew that were housed at the Cathedral are today. During the Reformation in the 1500’s, in 1559 John Knox preached a famous fiery sermon at the Holy Trinity Church on South Street which roused the congregation to take up arms and come and destroy the interior of the Cathedral. It was at this time the relics disappeared, and no one knows where they went. A sad ending to our tale, however the name and relevance of St Andrew live on in the name of our lovely town.
Whatever you plan to do this St Andrews day, we hope you enjoy yourselves and remember the story of how St Andrew came to be our patron saint, and our fair town’s name.
Written by Sophie Belau-Conlon, Visitor Services Supervisor, Museums of the University of St Andrews
There’s lots we can do this Year of Coasts and Waters to appreciate and safeguard Scotland’s Living Seas. The St Andrews Bay of the North Sea and the nearby Firth of Forth and River Tay are ideal places to spot Scotland’s iconic sea species including seals, cetaceans – such as bottlenose dolphins, harbour porpoises, or minke whales – or even the occasional basking shark. So whether you hope to catch a glimpse from the town’s beaches or by venturing further afield along the Fife Coastal Path, there are plentiful local wildlife watching opportunities. And best of all, it costs nothing: all you need is a warm jacket.
But as well as providing a relaxing diversion, responsible and respectful marine wildlife watching can play a role in protecting Scotland’s unique marine environment. By recording and reporting your sightings, you can contribute to the collection of vital biodiversity data for use in research and wildlife conservation.
With their recently launched “Citizen Fins” project, the marine mammalogists at the University of St Andrews’ Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) provide an excellent example of how information gathered by citizen science can be used to protect our Living Seas. The project invites members of the public to share their photos of East Coast bottlenose dolphins, especially those spotted in the Firth of Forth and further south. Researchers are interested in monitoring population movement so are looking for images which show identifying dorsal fin marks in detail and therefore allows specific animals to be identified and their movements tracked. The project will aid evaluation of potential impacts of offshore developments on dolphins by analysing changes to these animals’ movements through Scotland’s East Coast into the waters of North East England.
Logo of the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU)
If you don’t have access to a camera or your local dolphins are proving camera shy, you can still contribute notes of other wildlife sightings at any time to biological recording centres such as the Fife Nature Records Centre. And if you manage to take some photos which lack the detail required for IDing marine animals, you can share your images with interest groups like the Forth Marine Mammal Project.
And if you a St Andrew University staff member or student, you can also now visit our Bell Pettigrew Museum and see some seaside specimens. These are all things you may even see as you visit the coast and beaches around St Andrews. We have even put together a tour for you to find some of these next time you visit!
Let us know how you get on and share any photos with us from your seaside treasure hunt.
Photograph courtesy of University of St Andrews
You may have recently seen the lobster in the quad, but we have other lobsters for you to see in the Bell Pettigrew Museum!
This is a Squat Lobster, found in St Andrews Bay. They can commonly be found in the western Mediterranean Sea, in the north eastern Atlantic Ocean, and also in the North Sea at depths of up to 150 metres, typically in cracks or under boulders.
Clue to find: Guarded above by a crafty crustacean. Several breatharian stay close.
Photograph courtesy of University of St Andrews
You likely know all about the seagulls around St Andrews, but have you noticed there are different types?? These are black headed gulls, and part of their Latin name –ridibundus, means laughing, and they have a distinctive almost laugh like call. Not what you wish to hear when enjoying your ice cream!
Clue to find: Watch your sandwich with these British natives! A tall guardian has a leg nearby.
The sea can offer many interesting treasures, and this Halichondria panicea, is most commonly known as the breadcrumb sponge. It is a suspension feeder, feeding mainly on phytoplankton. It can come in a range of colours too; this grey or cream shade is normally found in deeper waters.
Photograph courtesy of University of St Andrews
Clue to find: Neptune drinks to the rocks’ success!
Photograph courtesy of the University of St Andrews
When you think of the beach, one of the things that spring to mind is seashells. These are some examples of Mactra corallina, a type of edible saltwater clam. They live normally on sandy sea floors of depths of 5 – 30m, although they are often found washed up on beaches.
Clue to find: Creatures to the left of me, crustaceans to the right. I’m right in the middle of all!
Photograph courtesy of University of St Andrews
Last on our treasure hunt is this not so scary tentacled creature! Cirriformia tentaculata, is a species of marine polychaete worm and can grow up to 10cm in length. They have soft bodies and lie buried in mud or sand.
Clue to find: Tentacles? What do you mean??
I am just reaching out along all sides to my other sea friends!
Human disturbance of marine wildlife can be catastrophic in its consequences, from causing injury and even death to splitting up family groups or driving animals from their natural feeding or breeding grounds. The best way to enjoy marine wildlife is therefore by watching from the shore or on an official boat trip from an operator participating in the WiSe Scheme. You may even be lucky enough to spot dolphins out in the bay from the window of University buildings on The Scores! Wherever you are, you should always follow the Scottish Marine Wildlife Watching Code from NatureScot (formerly Scottish Natural Heritage) as well as their Guide to Best Practice for Watching Marine Wildlife.
Scottish Marine Wildlife Watching Code from NatureScot
It’s also useful to know what you can do if you need to get aid for a stricken animal while you’re out and about. Marine wildlife can become stranded, meaning the animal is either dead or remains alive but is stuck aground on the shore and unable to return to water. This can happen with individual animals or as part of “mass stranding” events such as in 2012 when 27 pilot whales were stranded on the Fife coast between Anstruther and Pittenweem. In the event you encounter live cetaceans or seals which appear stranded or injured, you should contact the SSPCA or British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), both of whom operate 24-hour emergency rescue services. The BDMLR’s online guide “What to do if…” outlines what (if any) action you can take in different scenarios.
What to do if you see a marine animal in distress or dead:
If you find live stranded or injured cetaceans or seals contact SSPCA 03000 999 999 or British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) 01825 765546 (Office hours) and 07787 433412 (Out of office hours)
Animals with tags should also be reported to the Sea Mammal Research Unit [email protected]
Cetaceans and basking sharks are protected in law meaning it is illegal to harass or harm them. If you witness a wildlife crime (e.g. someone deliberately disturbing dolphins) you should report this to Police Scotland
Dead cetaceans, basking sharks, seals and turtles should be reported to the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) [email protected]
Much like parents shouldn’t have a favourite child, I was once told that someone working in a museum shouldn’t have a favourite historical character.
But I do.
Rev Dr Thomas Chalmers, Image courtesy of the University of St Andrews Library, ID ALB-1-81
Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) was a church minister, social reformer, scientist, philosopher and economist; stubborn as a mule, proud as a peacock, often unwilling to admit his mistakes, visionary and go-get-‘em. He had hair like a bird’s nest and an accent once described as bruisingly barbarous, yet his preaching attracted huge crowds in a Victorian version of Beatlemania. A stained-glass window dedicated to him will be on display at the Wardlaw Museum; a colourful commemoration of a colourful character.
He studied at St Andrews, then infuriated the University by teaching rival classes in mathematics before returning as professor of Moral Philosophy in 1823, but he’s most famous for leading a third of the ministers of the Church of Scotland out of that denomination to form a new one, the Free Church of Scotland, in 1843.
On the surface, this event, called the “Disruption”, was about the courts overturning a congregation’s choice of minister in favour of the landowner’s candidate. Chalmers and his friends saw it as something deeper, the need for freedom from the secular law that was overreaching into God’s kingdom.
I admire Chalmers’ faith, his hard work in bringing education to the slums of Edinburgh and his efforts, though not always successful, to better support the poor of Glasgow.
But…
In the middle of the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer it was brought to my attention that soon after its foundation the Free Church accepted £3000 from US churches frequented by slave owners. Abolitionist Frederick Douglas, himself formerly enslaved, argued that the denomination was benefitting from slavery and campaigned for the Free Church to “send the money back”.
The Free Church refused, and tied itself in knots in justifying its position, arguing that someone who inherited slaves was a not a slave-owner, but a “slave-holder”, and stating that having slaves did not make someone a bad master.
On digging further I found that in 1826, while professor of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews, Chalmers himself wrote a treaty arguing for the abolition of slavery. All well and good, until reading on and finding Chalmers’ unsavoury solution.
In order to achieve abolition, Chalmers argued, slaves should be given a day off each week, during which they should work to earn money to buy their own freedom a day at a time, being fully free within seven or eight years. Then the enslaved person could proceed to buy the freedom of his family. “But,” Chalmers wrote, “the slave who idled away his free time, whether in sleep or amusement, would of course make no further progress towards a state of freedom.”
Chalmers’ suggestion makes us baulk; we see underlying racism, an evident lack of compassion and a failure to recognise both the urgency of freedom and the injustice of continued slavery, even while he argued for abolition. There’s also hypocrisy – quick to champion the church’s freedom from secular law, slow to achieve man’s freedom from slavery.
Reassessing a hero
So what do we do with this?
Do we wholeheartedly condemn Chalmers and the Free Church? Morality doesn’t change; slavery and racism are wrong now and they were wrong then.
Do we excuse them as a product of their age? Chalmers and the Free Church sought abolition, but their own attitudes remained ingrained with the prejudices of the time, when slavery was deeply embedded in wider economies and societies.
This being the nature of that society, do we argue that they were being practical? The Free Church in using money that came from slavery to fund good work that bettered the lives of others, and Chalmers in trying to find a practical, if deeply flawed, way of bringing enslavement to an end.
Do we judge not lest we be judged? Do we hold back from criticism of the past for fear of future generations judging us for our failure to tackle injustices today, be it modern slaves making our cheap clothes or the climate crisis?
Do we let this issue hide the excellent work done by Chalmers and the Free Church elsewhere? The Free Church did much to tackle poverty and inequality; indeed, it was another Free Church minister and St Andrews professor of Moral Philosophy, William Knight, who was key to bringing university-level education to women through St Andrews’ Lady Literate in Arts scheme.
Or do we accept that life is complicated and respond with a mixture of the above?
I continue to wrestle with these questions and don’t know the right answers. Discussions with others, like our regular Critical Conversations series, help us find the right path. But I have learnt that even our heroes have deep faults. My own reaction is to admire the good, speak out against the bad and learn from both.
Written by Matt Sheard, Learning and Access Curator, University of St Andrews Museums
The University of St Andrews are the caretakers of collections which span the entire history of the University, from the documents recording its foundation in 1413 up to the acquisition of the Prince Wullie, previously found in St Salvator’s Quad.
Not only important to the documentation of our university’s history, the collection remains a vital resource in teaching. Additionally, this year we were looking forward to finally opening the doors to the new Wardlaw Museum and to bring a small sample of this collection to the fore, with new objects, new interpretations, and a fresh lick of paint to boot!
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 crisis which has turned all our lives on their heads, people will have to wait a little longer to view the displays. Even more critical, access to the collection for teaching in its current state was limited, and the usual status-quo of hands on learning with collections has been interrupted.
Behind the scenes during this whole crisis, a team of people in IT have been working with the company Mnemoscene to create an online tool, Exhibit, which allows for a narrative-based approach to exploring 2D images and 3D objects. This has presented Museums a new avenue for allowing access to the collection; not only will the collection be available online, people will be able to use the tool to create their own narratives and explore the collection in a way unique to them.
With this great opportunity has come an all new challenge for the team at Museums. How can a small team scan over 100,000 objects and make them available online? The simple answer? We can’t. However, we can make a start, with a commitment to integrate digitisation of the collection into our everyday practise. As this period of 2020 has shown, digital is no longer a nice addition, a complimentary side to the main dish of the museum. Having a high-quality digital offer ensures that, even in unprecedented times, the collection in some form can always be accessible.
Museums secured a grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections fund to begin a rapid digitisation project to develop and implement a new tool for storytelling-based engagement with digitised collections. In this blog I am going to take you behind the scenes of the scanning process – taking the physical object and turning it digital.
The Artec Scanning Spider in action. The small white lights flash to ensure the object is well lit while scanning.
The Scanning Process
The two methods we are employing to digitise the objects are Photogrammetry, using a camera to capture images of an object from multiple angles and stitching them together, and using a 3D scanner, an instrument which scans an object and builds 3D models in real time.
The 3D scanner Museums use is called the Artec Space Spider – it looks like a fancy iron, but it has made the introduction into digitisation a lot simpler!
By taking multiple scans of museum objects and stitching them together in Artec Studio, we are able to produce 3D models ready to be uploaded to our database and made available online. It sounds fairly simple (so we thought back in August) and some objects were. If they have good ‘geometry’ (with lots of unique shapes and features for the program to pick up on) and good ‘texture’ (basically anything not shiny) we can make a model ready for upload in an hour or two.
However, we quickly realised many of our objects do not fit this simple criteria. Our collection has shiny things like silverware (not good), scientific instruments which are smooth and have little uniquely shaped features (not good), or are made of glass (really not good).
The object I will discuss today is an object we thought (naively) would scan well. It is relatively small, has lots of colour and unique shapes for the scanner to pick up – the dream!
The Mouth Ornament
The Mouth Ornament was acquired in the 1830’s by a Captain Brown. It was likely made on the west coast of New Ireland, but was acquired by Captain Brown on the Duke of York Islands, a popular trading post in the area at the time. The mouth ornament is made of boars tusks, dogs teeth, dewarra shells and either glass or resin beads. It is thought it was a war charm, held by clenched teeth by warriors of Papua New Guinea.
Research into the mouth ornament is ongoing, with new information coming to light as recently as April 2020. It was considered a great piece to highlight the potential of the exhibit tool – with a rich history, component parts which each hold significance, and new interpretations which challenge our historic understanding of this object. For this reason, it was an early choice for the scanner!
Scanning the ornament
The mouth ornament after the first scan. The scanner picks up everything, including the surface it is sat on.
We remove the background to leave just the rending of the object. The small flecks around the object is the “noise” caused by reflections off the object.
We came to scan the object, and I personally was very excited as it is one of my favourite objects in the whole collection. We placed it carefully on the table and got to scanning! Early on we thought we were on to a winner, the boar tusks were picked up beautifully by the scanner, and the criss-crossing beads across the tusks, despite being small, were also showing up well!
However, the beaded tassel then came into view. When we scan, the model can occasionally exhibit what is called ‘noise’, where the light emitted by the scanner reflects off the object’s surface and creates a haze around the objects. The tassel was not just noisy, it was a whole firework. Still we persevered, as we can usually deal with noise in the post-processing stage by erasing unwanted elements.
We thought the beaded part of the tassel was bad, but then we reached the dogs teeth finial. I should mention at this point, the scanner also does not handle sharp points, thin edges or points very well. The dog teeth were all of these, as well as shiny. Needless to say, it was not picked up well at all.
Still we endured with the scans, in the hope we’d be able to salvage it in post-processing. During post-processing, we clean up the model by removing any unwanted elements, such as the table base and the aforementioned ‘noise’, we align the scans as best as we can then run the ‘autopilot’ function which does a lot of clever computer things to stitch it together into a final product.
We tried our best, we really did, but have you ever tried to differentiate one dog tooth from another? Find which green bead on one scan lines up with the green bead on the second, third and fourth scan? Needless to say, despite all our ambition, we were not able to get a complete model of the mouth ornament though our Spider Scanner. The best we could offer by the end of the day was a well modeled top part of a mouth ornament, with the tassel conveniently chopped off by the autopilot.
After approximately four hours of trial and error, we moved it to the Photogrammetry list.
Final thoughts
Our best attempt. While the top of the ornament was picked up well, the further we went down the less able we were to get a good 3D rendering.
The purpose of this blog is not to condemn the Scanning Spider and its abilities, for many objects now it has been a great success. More, it is to shed some light on this process and demonstrate its not always plain sailing – technology is very clever, but sometimes it is boggled by a shiny surface. Whilst not quite an Aladdin’s cave of glittering jewels and gold, we have come to realise our collections is pretty shiny, albeit comprising lacquered wooden boxes filled with metal and glass scientific instruments, or silver spoons from students of the past.
Digitisation on this scale is not a quick fix or an instant remedy for this COVID-sized hole we have been left to deal with. We have been fortunate to have a small team who have been able to dedicate their time fully to get some of the collection available in time for teaching. However, it has become clear for Museums that digitisation is a long-term commitment, it needs time and dedication to get a whole university collection online.
Oronsay Priory by William Marshall Brown (1910) image courtesy of the University of St Andrews
This week we explore one of the more remote locations visited by Recording Scotland artists at the beginning of the 1900s. Oronsay Priory is located on the island of Oronsay, south of Mull, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island has played host to small settlements from the Mesolithic period, through the Bronze and Iron Ages and Viking encounters in later centuries. The islands officially came under the Kingdom of Scotland in the 1200s after the Treaty of Perth. The island shares the dynamic histories of early missionary work coupled with the political struggles of kings and nations. That legacy is literally carved in stone that can be seen in the art of the Recording ScotlandCollection, and visited even today.
The Augustinian priory on Oronsay is one of the best-preserved medieval monasteries in Scotland, supposedly founded by St Columba and refounded by John, Lord of the Isles in the 1300s. The priory includes a High Altar from the 1400s and the High Cross carved from a single piece of stone. The priory was controlled by different clans over four centuries, finally staying with the MacNeills until the 1900s when it, and Colonsay, was sold to Donald Smith, Baron Strathcona in 1905.
Lord Strathcona was a Scottish-born Canadian businessman who was a principal shareholder in the Hudson Bay Company. He, like Edward Harkness, donated millions of pounds of his wealth to charities and universities in North America and the United Kingdom. During the era of the Recording Scotland Collection, the island and title passed to Strathcona’s only daughter, Lady Strathcona, and was inherited by her descendants in successive generations. Both islands were offered up for sale beginning in the 1970s, however, only Oronsay passed out of Strathcona hands. They retained their home on Colonsay and were able to make improvements from the sale.
Oronsay was eventually purchased by Ike and Frances Colburn, wealthy Americans from Chicago, Illinois, in 1984. Mr Colburn was famed as the architect of the Episcopalian Cathedral of South Michigan. He had read about the island for sale in Scotland in a magazine and purchased it unseen. When he arrived on the island, he discovered the wealth of archaeology and architecture and set out to protect and improve the location. He and his wife took active roles in restoration work. Later, while retaining ownership, they worked with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to create refuge on the island. The refuge strives to provide a safe location for resident choughs and breeding corncrakes. It also protects the European dark bee, a species that is all but extinct in mainland Scotland. The RSPB farms the land using traditional methods that give shelter and feed for migratory birds and protected bees.
The priory, now and historically, is only reached by walking the tidal causeway which is half a mile from its neighbour Colonsay Island, for a few short hours during low tide. Visitors can arrive by boat at other times of day. This limited access makes the island more mysterious as you can imagine as William Marshall Brown lugged his watercolour paints across the sand to Oronsay to capture the intricately carved crosses and priory ruins sometime in the 1910s.
This week we have a video featuring Oronsay Priory by William Marshall Brown.
The Recording Scotland collection is a set of watercolours, oils and drawings collected during World War II to permanently capture the “feeling” of the nation. Each piece of artwork was chosen because it captured an essential view of Scotland; with emphasis on the places most likely threatened by war and industrialization. This is the final blog in the series of blogs about different aspects of the Recording Scotland collection.
And so this clear October morning light smiles on a young vigorous Alma Mater of a city, whose children gather around her knee. There is something of fairy-tale about the sudden flash of a red gown in a grey street, then the flash of another, and then a surging of red gowns, where there are good shouting and good laughter, and hope and happiness, as if out of the hill the children had all come back to Hamelin Town. But the hills from which they come are many and wide spread across all the world.
–J.B. Salmond (pg. 38 Recording Scotland)
In St Andrews the autumn is marked by a subtle changing of colours as wheat ripens in the surrounding fields and trees turn shades. The annual Lammas market at the beginning of August also heralds the shift from the intensity of summer to the new academic year. Historically, the Lammas market was one of four annual fairs that brought performers and entertainments to Market Street. It was a time for games, races, and the buying and selling of livestock and goods. Students returning to town are the next indicators of autumn, as they settle into their academic homes to begin their studies once again. Throughout Scotland celebrations of Marymass, Michaelmass Day, highland games, Samhain, and bonfire night all take place in the autumn months leading up to St Andrews day on 30 November. Each observance has its own traditions and legacies that are rich for exploration. We can see the same autumnal shift in colours in the painting “Autumn in Dunfermline” by Alan Ian Ronald and can imagine all the same traditions being observed across Scotland over the years.
By the fall of 1952, the Recording Scotland committee had fulfilled its mission. A book featuring highlights of the collection had been published, the fifth in the series of Recording Britain. While the book captured the outlines of the Scottish collection, the cutting-edge printing techniques used to reproduce the paintings failed to accurately capture the vibrancy of the real works by today’s standards.
The paintings which had travelled extensively and been reproduced, were now in need of a permanent home. Realizing that they were out of funds for insurance or other expenses, the pieces could no longer travel to distant parts of the country. The collection held 145 pieces and posed a challenge for any institution that might take it on.
Luckily, a suggestion was made to donate the paintings to the University of St Andrews in honour of Sir James Irvine, the former committee member and Principal of the university, who had passed away earlier in the year. The works were originally donated to hang in residence halls to act as inspiration for future generations of students.
Sir James, the great advocate of the collection, died in June and was buried not far from the St Andrews Cathedral in the eastern cemetery near the harbour. J.B. Salmond, the archivist and poet, lived another six years. Stephen Edward Harkness, the great benefactor of the university, had passed away in 1940, but his legacy continues through the work of the Pilgrim Trust. Harkness is commemorated on campus by a stained glass window in St Salvator’s Hall, the building whose construction he also funded in the 1930s. To learn more about the stained glass on campus, check out https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/about/history/st-salvators/stained-glass/
Today, the Recording Scotland collection remains a challenging reminder of the nation’s past; including visual representations of some of its greatest loves and fears. Love for the history carved in wood and stone, love for farmers and fishmen (and women) who fed the nation, and fears of losing those places and occupations to the ravages of time and modernization. Thankfully many of the fears that the Recording Scotland committee held in the 1940s, proved ungrounded, as many of the places survived the war and advancement of time up to today. For the places that did succumb, the lessons remain clear to cherish what remains, and to honour the memories of those that went before.
Salmond’s poem from the Recording Scotland volume, featured under the image of “The Castle of St. Andrews” captures one last sentiment on the art and ancient history of St Andrews; “Perhaps it likes best to remember that in its heyday, as now in its ruins, it acted and acts as a schoolroom for scholars.” All of St Andrews continues to be a schoolroom for scholars, and the museums of the university hope to encourage students and tourists alike to visit and learn more about more amazing stories that this place has to share.
Recently we have been lucky enough to be invited to feature some new works by young artists who participated in the University of Edinburgh’s summer workshop “Capturing Lives in Scotland’s Communities-An Arts Award Explore Online Project.” Students aged 11-18 worked with university museums staff to learn about different themes and media styles. St Andrews helped during the landscape week with information about the Recording Scotland collection. While these pieces are not part of our museum collection, they give us a sneak peek at up and coming artists and we could not resist sharing their landscape artworks. These talented young people are following in the footsteps of the Recording Scotland artists and here is the University of Edinburgh Museum’s Community Outreach Coordinator Laura Beattie’s explanation of the student art.
“During our week on landscape painting, we looked at many different landscape paintings and discussed the different techniques used to make them: some were abstract, like Karen Goode’s Untitled work from Duncan of Jordanstone’s College of Art and Design, which elicited many different responses. Some of us found it scary or threatening while others found it calming. We also looked at work which aimed to be more representational, like those in the University of St Andrews’ ‘Recording Scotland’ collection. We agreed that, given the context of the collection, it was important for the works to be at least somewhat realistic. Our young artists then went on to create their own landscape artworks inspired by the works we had looked at.”
To learn more about the Recording Scotland collection, you can read Recording Scotland, ed. James B. Salmond, 1952. “Recording Britain,” ed. Gill Saunders, 2011. James Colquhoun Irvine: St Andrews’ Second Founder by Julia Melvin, 2011.
The Recording Scotland collection is a set of watercolours, oils and prints collected during the second world war to permanently capture the “feeling” of the nation. Each piece of artwork was chosen because it captured an essential view of Scotland; with emphasis on the places most likely threatened by war and industrialisation. This is the eighth blog in the series of blogs about different aspects of the Recording Scotland Collection.
Today we would like to introduce a nautical theme from the Recording Scotland Collection, featuring images of both women and men at work in the fishing industry before and between the world wars.
Only a dozen of the Recording Scotland Collection paintings capture such scenes of boats, harbours, and the men and women who made their livelihoods by the ocean. This is a relatively small number of paintings when we consider that Scotland has a mainland coastline that spans over 6,000 miles and, when you include the islands it reaches over 10,000 miles of shoreline! That is a magnificent amount of coast, and thousands of stories to tell about the fishing villages and their inhabitants.
David Foggie RSA (1878-1948) is the artist that provides several of the coastal paintings we are featuring today. He trained in Dundee and furthered his artistic studies in Belgium. He returned home to Scotland in 1904 and settled in Fife, near Leuchars. His paintings of Pittenweem help to illustrate the cultural traditions of East Neuk and East Lothian fishing villages, and particularly highlights the role that women played in the fishing industry.
In 1907, 2,500,000 barrels of herring were salted and shipped from Scotland. This “boom” of herring resulted in thousands of vessels, fishermen and “herring lasses” being employed. Government support and the use of railways for shipping had resulted in a robust industry as long as the fish shoals were healthy. This boom was a high mark for the fishing industry, but it was soon to face the challenges of two world wars and a changing global economy. For centuries, Scotland had been the location best suited for fishing for salmon and herring and had resulted in a thriving trade with European neighbours.
Herring was traditionally caught using a drift net. These nets were stretched out and suspended in the water by corks, where the fish become trapped by their gills when they try to swim into the net. Drift nets had to be constantly repaired and treated, in a process called “barking and drying.” We can see the fishermen at work with their nets in the paintings by David Foggie called Barking nets, Pittenweem and West Shore, Pittenweem. The nets had to be submerged in large pots on shore every few weeks during the fishing season, whereas wealthier and more advanced vessels could treat their nets aboard ship. The nets were then stretched out on grassy hills, long gardens, alleyways or shores to dry before being used again. The historic villages still have long and unusually shaped buildings reflecting the need for nets to dry and ropes to be made.
Fishing was a family affair. We can imagine the work performed by the women captured in May Marshall Brown’s Cat Row, Dunbar and we can see the women seated by their homes in West Shore, Pittenweem. Women would work by cleaning fishing lines, reattaching, and baiting new hooks before each journey to sea. They could gather with other women while they did the work, while also minding their children and a thousand other tasks. If the women were busy handling fish guts, you can imagine how many cats came to beg for their dinner.
Scottish women had limited access to occupations at the end of the 1800s, but seasonal work around herring fishing provided a much-needed income. Women travelled from the islands to the mainland and back, even venturing south to England following the shoals of herring. Teams of women worked together gutting and packing the herring into barrels for days on end. Most could gut fish at a rate of 30 to 50 a minute. The work was hard and dangerous, due to the high probability of cuts and infections. The women were paid at the end of the season based on the number of barrels they were able to pack. This might result in receiving £10 – £20 for the season if it was a prosperous year. If it was a poor fishing season, then they might only make enough money to travel home. The women understood the work to be hard but enjoyed the companionship and extra income that it afforded them. It also gave them the opportunity to visit new villages and ports, and potentially make romantic matches. Women’s Work, Pittenweem captures this communal effort as the women work on the shore.
Salted herring was purchased predominately by Germany, the Baltic nations, and Russia in the early part of the 20th century. All countries that were severely impacted at the outbreak of war and suffered from inflation and economic instability. In the 1930s, other countries also built up their own domestic fishing fleets and no longer relied on the Scottish trade. During the wars, men went off to military service and women had transitioned into munitions work or nursing. Technology also advanced for fishermen who could do more with smaller, more efficient boats and packing facilities. Tastes also changed, and salted herring was no longer as prized as other types of seafood. Fishermen (and women) continue to adapt in the coastal villages and find new and inventive ways to continue the traditions of their trade. It was once popular to present friends and neighbours with a string of herring as a gift. When was the last time you gave someone a herring?
The various roles that women have performed in Scottish maritime history have not only been captured in paint, but also in bronze. The “herring girls” are commemorated with two statues in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis and a statue of a woman and child stand in Pittenweem harbour looking out to sea in remembrance of the 400 people who have lost their lives at sea.
To learn more about the history of fishing in Scotland, make sure to stop in at the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther.
Witchcraft and mystery, or, the object that never was in our collection
Jessica Burdge and Katie Eagleton
Every museum has at least one object that people sometimes ask about, but which actually isn’t in their collection. For the Museums of the University of St Andrews there is an added layer of mystery, because ours is a witch skull, and we can’t illustrate this blog with a photograph of it, because it has disappeared.
Lilias Adie, picture courtesy of Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, University of Dundee
More than 300 years ago, Lilias Adie from Torryburn, Fife, was accused of witchcraft. She died in prison in 1704, before the sentence of execution could be carried out, and her remains were buried on the beach weighed down by a large stone, which was said to be to stop her coming back to haunt people. In the 19th century, her remains were exhumed, and accounts you can find online today usually say that the skull was initially in the private collection of a doctor in Dunfermline, then in the University of St Andrews anatomy collection – but went missing sometime in the 20th century. Today, more than 300 years after Adie’s death, there are attempts to find her remains, and to more respectfully remember her and others who were tried for, and convicted of, witchcraft in Scotland.
It’s a story that has all the elements of a mystery story: witchcraft and a disappearing skull. As a result, we receive reasonably regular queries asking where the skull is now, and what records we have of it in our collection in the past?
The St Andrews connection seems to begin on 30th September 1884, when twelve men of the Fifeshire Medical Association met at St Andrews, in the classroom of Professor Pettigrew, anatomist at the University. The first talk was on the history of the University, and the second talk was on Lilias Adie. Dr William Barrie Dow from Dunfermline showed her skull to the gentlemen present, explained his observations on it, and read extracts from the Kirk-Session records. There was then a third talk on the then-recently-described tuberculosis bacterium, including viewing of specimens through microscopes, before everyone repaired to the Cross Keys Hotel for dinner and speeches to celebrate Dr Dow having been elected President of the Association for the coming year (Dundee Evening Telegraph, 2 October 1884, page 3).
It is not clear who owned the skull in 1884 – or, indeed, whether the group took it to the Cross Keys with them – but in the published version of his talk, Dow named Robert Couston (who had not been present at the meeting) as the former owner of the skull. Sometime around the turn of the century, although it is not known where or by whom, three photographs of the skull were taken, and it is these that have recently allowed a reconstruction of Adie’s face to be created by specialists at the University of Dundee. In 1901 and 1904, Robert Couston published articles about Lilias Adie in the Dunfermline Press in which he said that her skull had come to the St Andrews Museum.
The problem is, we can find no trace of it.
From 1838 onwards, the St Andrews Literary and Philosophical Society, who were responsible for the museum at the University, kept detailed lists of objects acquired for the collection, and in those there is no mention of anything that could be this skull. Nor is it included in a complete list of the museum and its collection that was compiled in 1904 when the Literary and Philosophical Society formally handed both over to the University. These records are detailed, but to be sure that the skull wasn’t somehow in the collection without proper documentation, we took copies of the photographs of Lilias Adie’s skull (which has distinctive and prominent front teeth) and compared it with the skulls in the Anatomy and Pathology collection. None were similar. The trail, at this point, goes cold, and we can only conclude that Lilias Adie’s skull was probably never part of the collections at the University of St Andrews.
However, readers who know the history of the University and the history of its museums may have spotted a coincidence of locations here, that might be the key to unlocking this mystery. That is, Professor Pettigrew’s rooms at the University were in the United College Building, only a few hundred metres from the location of the University Museum, which in 1884 was in Upper College Hall.
Perhaps, then, there is no witchcraft and no mysterious disappearance here at all – if statements that the skull was in the University of St Andrews Museum trace back to newspaper reports by someone who wasn’t there, published 15 years later, of an evening in 1884 when a group of medical gentlemen examined Adie’s skull at the University close to – but not in – the University Museum.
The last time the location of Lilias Adie’s skull was known was in 1938 when it was displayed along with other objects relating to witchcraft as part of the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow, in one of the two Scottish pavilions. One contemporary newspaper reported that it “grins from a showcase”, and repeats Couston’s statement that the skull had previously been in the collections of the University of St Andrews but gives no details about who at that point owned it (Falkirk Herald, 16 July 1938, page 7). Records of the Empire Exhibition are now held in the University of Glasgow Archives but the Hunterian Museum has no record of Lilias Adie’s skull being deposited in their collection, so it may be that it is still in a private collection somewhere.
The University of St Andrews is the oldest university in Scotland, and one of Europe’s most ancient universities. Today, the answer to the question – Why St Andrews? – seems to be rather cliché due to a great importance of St Andrews in the academic world. However, in the first decade of the 15th century it was not that obvious and the subject of consideration of two canon scholars, Bishop Henry Wardlaw in Scotland and Pope Benedict XIII in Avignon, France. Gallery 1, Scotland’s First University, at the Wardlaw Museum presents unique material remnants providing answers to the question Why St Andrews?
Why St Andrews? Bishop Henry Wardlaw’s perspective
While Henry Wardlaw[1] or Henry de Wardlau, who studied canon law at Avignon[2] and was related to the papal court, was granted the bishopric of St Andrews in 1403, this centre of the Scottish medieval Catholic Church was already a burgh with a market town and fairs attracting broad attention. Multiple letters from Benedict XIII to Scotland provide evidence that scholars educated in France were present in St Andrews diocese as early as the late 14th century,[3] however, the local history of studying dates back much further. Scotland’s largest cathedral with a priory was the focal point of the city. [4] For monastic communities, reading was an essential part of spiritual reflection and the library played a significant role in monastic and ecclesiastic life.[5] Books copied from other priories, donated by patrons and benefactors for instance in 1140 and 1150, travelled to St Andrews from other religious houses.[6] This resulted in impressive holdings of works, as described by the authors of the 14th century Registrum Anglie. The St Andrews library was a bedrock of further scholastic community. Two stone book presses,[7] still present in the cloister, are material evidence of what remains from the initial teaching hub. Eight scholars are said to have launched teaching in St Andrews and Bishop Wardlaw describes them in his grant of privileges as ‘venerable men, the doctors, masters, bachelors, and scholars dwelling in the city of St Andrews’.[8] All of these circumstances fuelled the establishment of a studium generale in the years leading up to 1413 when University of St Andrews was founded. [9]
Maquette of Bishop Henry Wardlaw (HC2011.21 ) can be viewed in Gallery 1 at the Wardlaw Museum]
Why St Andrews? Papal perspective
Papal bull of Foundation can be viewed in Gallery 1 at the Wardlaw Museum (image courtesy of University of St Andrews Special Collections)
Only the Pope or Emperor could grant both the university status and the licencia ubique docendi; a license to teach anywhere. Bishop Wardlaw and King James I, Wardlaw’s pupil, asked Benedict XIII to authorise the foundation of the university. The papal approval was sent in six bulls granting university status to the institution in St Andrews (1413).
Pope Benedict XIII (1328-1423) was an individual of unique nature in the history of Medieval Europe and the history of the papacy. He was born as Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor, a son of a noble family in the city of Illueca in Aragon.[10] His Coat of Arms, a crescent moon (luna), along with the diamond shapes of Bishop Wardlaw, and the lion rampant from the Royal Arms of Scotland, formed the Coat of Arms of the University of St Andrews.
Banner of the Coat of Arms of the University of St Andrews (HC1160) can be viewed in Gallery 1 at the Wardlaw Museum
Benedict XIII did not reign in Rome, but in Avignon. As the Antipope, during the Western Schism (1378-1417), he reminded in opposition not only to subsequent popes in Rome (Boniface IX, Innocent VII, Gregory XII) but also to other antipopes derived from the Council of Pisa (1409; Alexander V and John XXIII), and to Martin V, unanimously elected during the Council of Constance (1417). Eventually, as the result of the Council of Constance, Benedict XIII maintained governmental recognition of Armagnac and Scotland only.
Through his claims to the papal throne, Benedict XIII was trying to secure his authority in Europe and the foundation of the university was in his best interest. Bishop Wardlaw even claimed grants of privileges to save the authority of Benedict’s Apostolic See.[11] In the petition to the Pope, Bishop Wardlaw bolsters the case to maintain Scottish loyalty and the threat of heresy by improving local high learning for the clergy.[12] From Benedict’s point of view, the University of St Andrews was to be a lucrative deal strengthening his position against the competitors. Sadly for him, after the Council of Constance, the University of St Andrews decided that support of the council was necessary for a united church and it came out in opposition to Benedict.[13]
A plaster cast of the skull of Benedict XIII and a single hair from his head mounted in a microscope slide[14] remind us that origins of the University are linked with the Great Schism and one of the most influential antipopes.
Cast of skull of Pope Benedict XIII (HC789) can be viewed in Gallery 1 of the Wardlaw Museum [15]
Why St Andrews? Students’ perspective
The answer was explicitly stated in the papal document ‘Because of the dangers and troubles to Scots who, because of the absence of universities in Scotland, have to travel to foreign parts to study’.[16] Another reason was the reduction in the cost of studies. As Norman Reid believes, ‘Scotland needed more clergy who were well educated and the provision of a home university would enable that expansion at a more manageable cost than continuing to send all students abroad (…). Not to stem the flow of Scots to foreign universities – what did not happen – but rather to increase educational provision by offering a home alternative’.[17]
According to Reid, Benedict XIII in his papal bulls acknowledged the education received by Scots at the universities that were not obedient to the antipope. Scottish students returning from universities abroad could continue their studies in St Andrews or pursue their education elsewhere, including universities of schismatic obedience, in this case following the Pope in Rome.[18]
The first students of St Andrews are depicted on the medieval University seal, made between 1414 and 1418, showing scholars learning before a teacher, overseen by Scotland’s patron saint. The University seal was used to authenticate official documents.
Digital reproduction of seal matrix from the Bull of Foundation courtesy of Special Collections of the University of St Andrews Library which can be seen in Gallery 1 of the Wardlaw Museum
Written by Dr Kamila Oles, Visitor Services Facilitator, Museums of the University of St Andrews
[1] See https://museumoftheuniversityofstandrews.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/who-was-henry-wardlaw/
[2] McGurk F., ed., 1976, Calendar of Papal letters to Scotland of Benedict XIII of Avignon, 1394-1419, Scottish History Society, vol. 13, Edinburgh; Reg Aven 278, 436x-437v, (20 October 1394), p. 20
[4] Simpson A. and Stevenson S., 1981, Historic St Andrews: the archaeological implications of development, Scottish burgh survey series, Glasgow.
[5] Leedham-Green E., and Webber T, eds., 2006, The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, vol. 1 , Cambridge; Coates A., 1996, English Medieval Books: The Reading Abbey Collections from Foundation to Dispersal , Oxford.
[6] Duncan A.A.M., The Foundation of St Andrews cathedra Priory, 1140, pp.122-123; Higgitt J., ed., 2006, Scottish Libraries, London 2006, pp. 222-225
[7] Reid N. H., 2017, The Prehistory of the University of St Andrews St. Andrews, in: Brown M., and Stevenson K., eds., Medieval St Andrews. Church, Cult, City, Woodbridge, p. 248.
[9] Mason R., 2017, University, City and Society, in: Brown M., and Stevenson K., eds., Medieval St Andrews. Church, Cult, City, Woodbridge, p. 268.
[10] Müller-Schauenburg B., 2019, The lonely antipope – or why we have difficulties classifying Pedro de Luna [Benedict XIII] as a religious individual, in: Fuch M. et al. eds., Religious Individualisation, pp. 1351-1364
[11] The original Wardlaw’s grant of privileges is missing. One of six papal bulls of August 1413, issued for the University of St Andrews, recited Wardlaw’s text; Reid N. H., 2017, The Prehistory of the University of St Andrews St. Andrews, p. 262.
[12] Mason R., 2017, University, City and Society, p. 263.
[13] McGurk F., ed., 1976, Calendar of Papal letters to Scotland of Benedict XIII of Avignon, p. 13.
[14] Read J., 1973, Pedro de Luna: The Pope from the Sea, History Today, vol. 23, issue 3.
