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WRITING IN THIS ISSUE

Dr John Crawford is a library and information

Welcome...

This issue of History Scotland marks an important

Dr Frederick Wainwright

Pioneer of rescue archaeology

New evidence uncovered for BRONZE AGE BURIAL RITES

An early bronze age cemetery discovered near Helensburgh by GUARD Archaeology has revealed long-lost secrets of burial rites from bronze age Scotland

The Petardy Historic Landscape Project

Founded in the autumn of 2020, the Petardy Historic Landscape Project is a community archaeology project studying the picturesque Pittarthie Farm in east Fife, a terrain with traces from the neolithic to the Second World War.

HISTORY NEWS

Rare Robert Burns family needlework returned to Scotland

MACGIBBON AND ROSS AND THEIR PASSION FOR CASTLES

Janet Brennan Inglis takes a look at the lives and career s of David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, whose magisterial sur vey of hundreds of Scottish castles is still regarded as a masterpiece, almost 150 years later

SIR HENRY RAEBURN and the development of Stockbridge

Sir Henry Raeburn is widely recognised as one of Scotland’s leading portrait painters.What is less well known is that he was also one of Scotland’s most successful property speculators. Barclay Price tells the story of Raeburn’s role in the development of the village of Stockbridge

TWO YOUNG ABERDEEN QUINES transported for life

On 23 September 1835 at the Aberdeen high court of justiciary, friends Mary Ann Little - ‘betwixt fifteen and sixteen years’ - and her co-accused, Matilda Moir - ‘betwixt fourteen and fifteen years’ - were sentenced to be ‘transported beyond the seas’ for seven years. Lesley Dunbar tells their stories

The drama of mid-Victorian elections

David W. Main tells the story of a dramatic election contest in Linlithgowshire that resulted in an alleged assassination attempt

YOU HAD TO BE THERE

Fact and description in historical narratives

Bridging the Atlantic

Dr Bruce Taylor describes how shortwave tests at Ardrossan over 100 years ago were key to the development of global radio communications

CROMARTY’S EMIGRATION STONE

Sandy Thomson takes a look at the story around a commemorative stone carved with the names of 39 ships that made the perilous journey across the Atlantic carrying people starting a new life – some willingly, others less so…

LEADHILLS MINERS’ LIBRARY

A world class pioneer

GODS AND MONSTERS

Classical Allusion and the Jacobites

For the love of the land: Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir

300 years since his birth, Liesbeth Van Hulle delves into the life and legacy of the Gaelic poet Duncan Ban MacIntyre, whose extensive body of orally-composed work is particularly notable for its affectionate treatment of MacIntyre’s native highland landscape

DR BLAIR and the ELEPHANT PART 1

In the first instalment of a two-part series, Andy Drummond and Dr Michiel Roscam Abbing explore the remarkable moment in 1706 when the people of Dundee awoke to discover a dead elephant lying just outside their town.Where had this unusual visitor come from, and how had it ended up perishing by an Angus roadside?

‘AN AUSTERE CONSCIENCE AND AN INDEPENDENT IMAGINATION’

The Scottish History Society and its literary legacy in the 20th century

10 MINUTES ON ...THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN

History Scotland’s consultant editor, Dr Allan Kennedy, looks into the battle of Otterburn in 1388, a major set-piece in the long history of Anglo-Scottish border skirmishing, and one that had important domestic consequences for the Scots

Stirling’s ‘lost’ Roman fort

Ahead of a new archaeological dig this summer, Dr Murray Cook presents the possible evidence for a ‘lost’ Roman fort for which he and his fellow archaeologists hope to uncover evidence this summer

BOOK REVIEWS

reviews@historyscotland.com Explore a selection of digital history guides

THE MYSTERY OF THE FLANNAN ISLE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS

Jocelyn Grant uses documents and photographs from the NRS to tell the strange story of the disappearance of the Flannan Isle lightkeepers on a bleak December day in 1900

SCOTTISH LOCAL HISTORY FORUM

Steve Connelly, chair of the Scottish Local History Forum, shares the SLHF’s recent activities and looks ahead to the coming year

SPOTLIGHT ON… CLYDEBANK LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY

The Singer clock, Clydebank, a visual reminder of

USING REGISTRATION DISTRICTS IN FAMILY HISTORY

Y ou may have listened to my talk

A rich record of Jacobite culture

In his latest column, Dr Kelsey Jackson Williams takes a look at one of the earliest manuscripts created in the tradition of cultural Jacobitism

FINAL WORD

David Taylor, author of the Scottish Saltire Society’s History Book of the Year 2023, talks to us about the writing and research process for his book The People Are Not There, and explains how the use of previously unseen documents allowed him to tease out the stories of events surrounding the clearances in the Badenoch region of the highlands

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Volume 24, Number 2 Spring 2024 www.historyscotland.com

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