Elgin Museum

Museum Musings

Welcome to Museum Musings, our new blog about all things Elgin Museum! If you’re interested in writing a short piece about a favourite object, display, exhibition or visit to Elgin Museum, please contact us.

• • Napoleon the Rocking Horse
  • Elgin Museum and Italianate architecture
  • Marbles in Miniature – the John Henning sculptures
  • Historical Recipes
  • Moths in the Museum
  • Fan Club
  • Our Daily Bread
  • Women of Moray
  • More Women of Moray
  • Grace Anne Milne
  • Firsts: Moray Women for Women’s History Month 2021
  • My Life as a Volunteer

 

Out latest blog post we hope will inspire you, as we hear from Jenny Cook, our Museum Volunteers’ Mentor, with an insight into her time as a volunteer at the Elgin Museum. If you’d like to start your own volunteering journey, please contact us or visit our Volunteering webpage to find out more.

My Life as a Volunteer

When I retired from teaching ten years ago, I knew I wanted to do some sort of voluntary work but had no idea what. I felt I still has something to give and needed to feel useful despite the fact I could fill my time enjoying myself with little effort, but this felt like guilty pleasure.

An evening visit to Elgin Museum, with a club I belonged to and an informative talk from Janet Trythall, clinched it – although it took another year to make my move. I have always had an interest in history so working in a museum sounded intriguing.

I was given basic tasks at first but gradually learned about the workings of the museum, how the collections were stored, recorded and data kept. As I got to know other volunteers, I was gradually asked to help with tasks they were doing, so learned to assist in exhibiting parts of our collection in the display cabinets and how to record what we did. Eventually, Mary Shand and I did a rolling display of three cabinets each year of the 100th Anniversary of World War 1. It became part of my life to come in each week over five winters (we displayed the aftermath of the war too) to work on these cabinets. I learned so much not only about the history but how to make displays interesting and I met so many friendly people also volunteering in the museum, many of whom have become firm friends.

As time went on, I was asked to take on the job of Volunteer Mentor which I eventually did, as a challenge to myself, and came to thoroughly enjoy communicating and meeting with new volunteers and explaining to them what was involved in becoming a museum volunteer. By now, I was welcoming visitors to the museum in the summer when we open to the public and enjoyed helping new volunteers to learn the ropes doing that.

Elgin Museum has become an important part of my life and I realise that I am not only giving but gaining every bit as much for my own benefit in continuing to learn, challenge myself and to make some really good friends. There is so much fun to be had as a volunteer.

Jenny Cook

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To conclude this series of blog posts, Museum volunteer Dr Janet Trythall used the search word ‘first’ in the book she co-authored, Women of Moray (Luath 2012), as a link to some innovative achievements. This arbitrary mode of search has of course excluded many other pioneers particularly in the fields of medicine, commerce, independent travel and the arts – and if you know of any we’ve missed, please let us know. (With thanks to the book’s contributors.).

Firsts: Moray Women for Women’s History Month 2021

Isobel Anne Duncan (1910-86) Elgin’s first and only female Provost

Born in Elgin, Sybil as she was always known, gained a degree in social science from Edinburgh University, an unusual choice of subject in the 1930s. Until recalled to Elgin to run her father’s coal and potato business when he died in 1946, she worked in deprived areas of Glasgow, London, Birmingham and Liverpool. Soon after her return, she became a Councillor, then Dean of Guild and in 1961, Lord Provost of Elgin City Council. A private person with a strong sense of duty, she was a Councillor for 29 years, her concerns for social justice in Elgin continuing from her early work experience. Her civic achievements are acknowledged in the naming of Duncan Drive, Bishopmill.

Meg Farquhar (1910-88) First female professional golfer

Meg, as she was known, taught herself to play golf whilst caddying for the London gentry who spent their summers in Lossiemouth where she was born. When she was nineteen, her playing skills were recognised and George Smith, the professional at Moray Golf Club, offered her a job as his assistant.  Despite her ambition to be a nurse, Meg accepted this offer and so became the first woman professional in Britain. Under Smith she received training in all the skills that a golf professional needed, such as making and repairing clubs and giving lessons. In 1933, she was accepted to play in the Scottish Professional Championship played over the Moray Links and thus became the first woman to play in what was normally an all-male national championship. Meg remained as a professional at Lossiemouth for another five years and established a significant reputation as a teacher. Thereafter she had an even more illustrious career as an amateur and continued to play golf to a high standard well into her 70s.

Ethel Bedford Fenwick (1858-1947) Campaigner for the registration of nurses

Born at Spynie House as Ethel Gordon Manson, as Ethel Bedford Fenwick, and after nearly thirty years of battles, she was responsible for creating the Nursing Register in 1919, with her name the first in the Register. Until then, anyone could call themselves a nurse without any training or professional qualifications. She was also a journalist and suffragist and was awarded medals for her work in the 1897 Graeco-Turkish War – she was appointed secretary of the National Fund for Crete and went out personally to help organise the hospitals. By 1915, amicably separated from her husband she threw herself into war work, working for the British Committee of the French Red Cross and travelling to France on several occasions. Age did not weary her – feisty as ever she was known to have wielded an umbrella in anger at a policeman when in her eighties and died in her ninetieth year having improved the world of nursing immeasurably.

Nora Mackay (1872-1952) First Moray woman to be elected a Councillor

The Mackay family home was The Tower in Elgin High Street. Nora’s father was a house surgeon at Dr Gray’s Hospital, Elgin and medical officer for Elgin Lunacy Board. Little is known of her early life, but she travelled widely:  Australia, New Zealand and Canada as well as Ceylon and several European countries. She spent some time in Finland, the first major European country to extend to women the right to vote and stand for election, in 1906. Back in Elgin she was involved with a number of organisations supporting the education of girls and women. When war came in 1914 Nora was forty-two years old and the various secretarial and organisational skills she had developed through her voluntary work meant that she was well equipped for the ‘important administration work’ she took up at the Bellahouston Red Cross Hospital in Glasgow. Following the 1935 Act of Assembly, when women became eligible, she was the first woman in Moray to be ordained a deaconess on 26 April 1936. Her good works continued and at the age of 59, she was the first woman to be elected to Elgin’s Town Council. Aged 75 in 1946, she was still the only female Councillor until joined that year by Sybil Duncan.

Lavinia Malcolm (circa 1847-1920) First Scottish women councillor and provost

Lavinia Laing was born in Forres where her father was manager of the Gasworks – her maternal grandfather John Kynoch was a director of the Company and Provost of Forres. By the time she was 16, the family were living at Hempriggs, where her father was a farmer and Lavinia was lodging with a Kynoch uncle. Her education is not known but aged 23, she was governess to the children of Viscount Marsham, in Norfolk.

Lavinia was very close to her Kynoch cousins in Dollar where she met her future husband Richard (Dickie) Malcolm, a teacher at the Academy. They wed in 1883 and she had charge of numerous schoolboy boarders by whom she was much loved and remembered. They lost their only son to pneumonia at the age of 8, and thereafter took on multiple duties outside their home. After the Qualification of Women (Town and Councils) Act 1907, and as a Dollar ratepayer, Lavinia was elected to Dollar Town Council and the first woman Town Councillor.

At the age of 66, she became the first Lady Provost in Scotland, proposed as being ‘wise in counsel, able in administration and wholehearted in the performance of all duties relegated to her’. She filled the post with ‘zest and flair’ through the difficult years of the First World War, and became famous throughout the United Kingdom. The Young Woman wrote of her: ‘Mrs Malcolm keenly enjoys her work, partly because of her enthusiasm and vivacious personality, and partly owing to her strong sense of humour, which has enlightened many a dull and dreary debate, and enlivened the prosaic details of town lighting and sanitation.’ Shortly before she died aged 73, and following the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1920, Lavinia was made a Justice of the Peace: her name appeared in the first list of appointments to the Commissioners of the Peace in Scotland.

Isabella Mitchell (1851-1931) First librarian in Elgin’s Public Library

Little is known of Bella’s early life. She was born in New Spynie Parish, where her father was postmaster at Quarrywood, and she had five siblings. A letter in Elgin Library’s archive is addressed to her in Rome in 1880, from her father, with news of her sister Helen in Elgin Lunatic Asylum. Bella took over as postmistress on her father’s retirement. The new Elgin Free Library opened on 14 May 1892 in a side room of the Elgin Town Hall on Moray Street. Miss Mitchell was appointed librarian in late 1891 much to the delight of Peter Grant of the Morayshire Union Poor House who wrote to Bella to tell her the good news: ‘The Day’s our ain!! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!!!’. Miss Mitchell held a well patronised arts and crafts exhibition during that first year and opened an art gallery and later a museum within the library. The library moved to Grant Lodge in 1903. When the library opened in 1892 it held 3366 volumes; by Miss Mitchell’s retirement in 1925 that number had increased to 8674; there were nearly two hundred books in the reference section and double that in the local collection. Throughout her adult life Bella wrote articles for the Christian Women’s Education Union and the Reading Guild. A special meeting of the Elgin Public Committee was held in December 1925 so that a eulogy could be read to mark her retirement at the age of 74. Although not a pioneer in a national sense, her career as Elgin’s first librarian demonstrates the slow march of women moving into increasingly responsible areas of employment.

Janet Trythall

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Continuing our theme of Moray Women for Women’s History Month, Dr Alison Wright, Coordinator of Elgin Museum Geology Group, has sent in this contribution. Grace Milne was a geologist in her own right and not just the niece and wife of two eminent Victorian geologists.

Grace Anne Milne

Grace Anne Milne (Lady Prestwich) (1832 – 1899)

Born at Kinloss House (formerly Abbeyside) to James Milne (JP for Findhorn) and his wife, Louisa Falconer, Grace became an accomplished artist, author, and champion of education for women.  She accompanied her uncle, eminent palaeontologist Dr Hugh Falconer, on his European travels during 1858-1861, often drawing specimens for him.  Hugh died in 1865 and, in 1870, Grace married his friend and associate, Joseph Prestwich.  She took an active role in his academic life, illustrating books and papers, until his death in 1896.  She later edited his letters to critical acclaim but Grace, with her sharp intellect, also wrote herself, contributing geologically themed essays to periodicals, and producing two novels.  Grace knew Mary Somerville in Italy and subsequently became a supporter of Somerville Hall, the (now) Oxford college established to provide educational opportunities for women.  The Geological Society recorded her death in 1899, noting that her sex alone had precluded her election as Fellow.

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Following on from her previous blog about the Woman of Moray, for Women of History Month, March 2021, Museum volunteer Dr Janet Trythall is back with some more for you with Moray connections: two Marys, suggestions from Susan and Richard Bennett.

More Women of Moray

Mary Seton Watts (1849 – 1938)

Mary was born in India, where her father, Charles Fraser Tytler was employed by the Honourable East India Company. As her mother died when Mary was only eighteen months old, she was brought up by grandparents at Aldourie Castle, near Inverness and from 1861, at Sanquhar House, Forres where her father retired. Mary trained as an artist on the Continent and the Slade School of Art, but she maintained a studio at Sanquhar House.

At the age of 32, Mary began teaching clay-modelling in the slums of Whitechapel in London. This pioneering move developed, along with other artists’ projects, into the Home Arts and Industries Association, with the belief that art should be accessible for all and could improve lives. She married the artist, George Frederick Watts, who had long been an influence in her life. They set up home in Compton, Surrey where she did less painting, but continued in her philanthropic approach to art, starting evening classes in pottery for the local community. When the Parish Council bought land for a new burial ground, Mary designed a mortuary chapel, inspired by her interest in Celtic design. It was built of local clay by local people, and can still be visited. The Watts Gallery and Artists’ Village continues today as a gem of the Arts and Crafts Movement, run by a Trust, with the continuing ethos of Art for All.

Mary Symon (1863 – 1938)

Mary Symon was born and died in Dufftown, where her father had a saddler’s business; he went on to become Provost, and owner of Pittyvaich House and Distillery. From Mortlach Female School she was sent at the age of fifteen to the prestigious Edinburgh Institute for Young Ladies. Here she met and studied with two influential figures in the fields of women’s education and literature. On leaving school, she returned to Dufftown and undertook the Lady Literate in Arts (LLA), a qualification offered by correspondence by the University of St Andrews in the decade or so before women were admitted to degree courses. However, as the unmarried daughter, Mary’s responsibility was the care of her aging parents – and her mother lived until 1924. From the early 1890s onwards, Pittyvaich was Mary’s home.

She was passionate in her promotion of the survival of the Scots language both for literary and everyday use and became a poet of more than local significance, remembered especially for her war poetry. Although appearing often in print, her only collected work of poetry is Deveron Days, 1933.

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, she wrote The Soldiers’ Cairn, one of the finest of all the Scottish war poems. The Cabrach, where Mary Symon’s family came from, lost an exceptional number of men and women in that conflict, but no memorial was ever erected. A hundred years later, inspired by the poem, members of the Cabrach Community took it upon themselves to build, with their own hands, The Soldier’s Cairn, dedicated by Prince Charles in 2015. On it is an extract from Mary’s poem of the same name:

In memory of those from the Cabrach lost in

the Great War 1914 – 18

and in all subsequent conflicts.

Lads in your plaidies, lyin still,

In lands we’ll never see,

This lanely cairn in your hameland hill,

Is aa that oor love can dee.

The Soldiers’ Cairn, by Mary Symon

 

I hope to have a few more women’s stories to share with you before the end of March!

Janet Trythall

 

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In celebration of Women’s History Month, Museum volunteer Janet Trythall has coordinated some of her fellow authors of Women of Moray to offer an insight into the important role of women in the story of Moray.

Women of Moray

In Elgin Museum, the Main Gallery tells Moray’s story in a series of chronological display cases, a story predominantly told through the men’s activities. This is perhaps not surprising since the source for so much of what we know was recorded from the perspective of Victorian and Edwardian men who, by their occupations and positions in society, were able to make themselves heard. Space was therefore found for an additional case, number 7: ‘Where are the Women of History?’, which you will find under the stairs, although I am told the location is not to be seen as significant!

Hard to answer the question in such a small space! Here are some of the objects selected: a shiny witch’s ball which would have been hung in a house window to attract and entrap the vain evil spirit; a drab heavy purple dress, the uniform of the Morayshire Combination Poorhouse (later Craigmoray), Bishopmill; a changing selection of grander lady’s wear; a pressed flower, Lesser trefoil, from the herbarium of the highly regarded botanist, Mary McCallum Webster (1906-1985), and an early edition of the semi-autobiographical novel by Jessie Kesson (1916 – 1994) reflecting her early years in the slums of Elgin, The White Bird Passes, 1958.

Given scant room here is the Museum’s collection of objects from the excavations of Miss Sylvia Benton (1887 – 1985) at the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, 1928 – 30. Sadly, the bulk of the finds from the Cave are in store in the National Museum, Edinburgh. Since 2007, there has been renewed archaeological interest in the Covesea Caves and much of the excavation work to date is collated in Darkness Visible (Society of Antiquaries Scotland, 2020), co-authored by another female archaeologist, Lindsey Büster, with Professor Ian Armit.

In 2012, a group of (mainly) women with long associations with the Museum, and coordinated by Susan Bennett, past Curator, published Women of Moray (Luath Press). Each of us was already enthused by individual stories of women we had noticed over the years as being worthy of greater acknowledgement. The collaboration was sometimes challenging but usually fun. My research took me to Dominica in the West Indies, saw me delving in archive departments in Oxford, Cambridge and Aberdeen Universities and having enlightening conversations with many surviving relatives and friends (including a pastor of the Apostolic Church who I tracked down about Anna Buchan).

Here are just a few thumbnail sketches of some of our Women of Moray. We had a cut-off date of death before 2000, so there is scope for a new edition, and to include the women we missed.

Dr Anna Buchan (Suckling) (1897 – 1964)

Her father was a fisherman, later a netmaker in Elgin. When her brother obtained his BA from Aberdeen University, he persuaded Anna to follow suit. Her subsequent PhD was on the palaeobiology of the clay pits by the Lossie railway line and she held museum positions in both Aberdeen and Elgin. Despite this, the headline of her obituary in the Elgin Courant reads ‘Was widow of an Elgin hairdresser’. (Janet Trythall)

Margaret Dawson, née Miller, (1770 – 1829)

As a young woman Margaret had an adventurous spirit. She persuaded her beloved, James Asher, a tailor from Quarrywood to give up his apprenticeship and follow the drum. The fourth Duchess of Gordon, “Bonnie Jean” was encouraging young men to go and fight Napoleon and Margaret joined him as a ‘Camp Follower’ one of the women who looked after and nursed the soldiers. When James died from his wounds, she somehow made her way back to Elgin with her son Thomas, via a Prisoner of War camp on a Dutch island. She found work at Johnston’s of Newmill, and lived at nearby Collie Street, as did many of their employees – it was known as Shuttle Ra’. Remember her as you enjoy your coffee in the Mill shop. (Anne Oliver)

Marjory Anderson, née Gilzean ( -1790)

Born into comfortable circumstances in Drainie Parish, Marjory also followed her husband to war. He had enlisted in a Hanoverian regiment in 1745, and she returned from France 3 years later, alone, destitute and with her mind and beauty damaged and with a son, Andrew. She reared him in the ruins of Elgin Cathedral, and gave him the start in life leading to his career with the Honourable East India Company and his bequest for the founding of Elgin’s Anderson’s Institution. Marjory, alone after he left home, led an independent but itinerant life by spinning, her son apparently unaware of her circumstances. (Janet Trythall)

 

We’ll add more stories about the women of Moray throughout Women’s History Month  – or if you have a story to share, send in your contributions (up to 150 words) by email.

And please visit our Books page where Women of Moray and Darkness Visible are available from the Museum at advantageous prices!

 

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Next on the blog, Dave Longstaff, Museum Volunteer and member of the Elgin Museum Geology Group, brings us the story of the Museum’s famous fossil footprints…

Footprints in the Sand

Visitors to the geology section of Elgin Museum are always fascinated by our Permian reptile footprint slabs that are on display. Some of these slabs have been held in the museum almost since the museum’s inception having been found in the long-abandoned sandstone quarries of Greenbrae and Maisonhaugh, both near Cummingston. Indeed, quarried blocks displaying such footprints made some 250 million years ago can still be found in and around Clashach quarry.

Of more importance to science are trails in their natural setting in the Hopeman Sandstone Formation: in-situ trails, because measurements of direction of travel and aspects of the bedding planes can be studied while quarried blocks lose all of this context. One well known in-situ trail used to exist about 500m east of Hopeman at grid reference NJ 155 702. Although not of the highest quality it was well studied, being one of only about six sites between Cummingston and Covesea where these trails exist.

However, in 1998 a group of fossil collectors, thought to be from the continent, decided to uplift the prints using rock cutting equipment leaving behind a badly scarred outcrop and several individual prints. On discovery of this, volunteers from the Elgin Museum together with staff from the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) used cutting equipment to salvage the remaining prints. The removed slab was taken to the NMS in Edinburgh where it is still on display.

It’s well known that the sandstones were laid down in a semi-arid desert environment; an interesting aspect of the prints found at Clashach is that there was a very diverse, mostly herbivorous, or omnivorous, fauna showing that there must have been vegetation and water present. No plant fossils have ever been found in the area but there is plenty of evidence of water being present, at least on a temporary basis.

The vandalised footprint slab shows fossilised ripple marks indicating that the reptile, probably a Dicynodont, had walked on recently wetted water-run sand. Only a few metres to the west of the footprint site there is a spectacular exposure of unusual sandstone displaying another aspect of water-soaked sand.

This exposure of highly contorted sandstone, termed a soft sediment deformation feature, has intrigued geologists for many years. It is of a quite small extent (only about 10 metres by 10 metres) but bounded to its east by completely flat, thinly bedded sandstones. Some geologists thought the wet sand was on the edge of an ancient ocean and some that the distortion was caused by wet sand being disrupted by an earthquake.

However, the consensus is now that the deformation was caused by a layer of wet sand slumping down a dune face. The intensely deformed bedding is about a foot thick; immediately underneath the beds lies completely undeformed water rippled sandstone showing the slumped dune was adjacent to running water. Maybe the event happened in a storm over 250 million years ago and the evidence is still there to be seen today.

The Hopeman coastline has many different features such as this illustrating the past environment and it draws geology students from all over the country to study the sandstones, all of whom are potential visitors to our museum of course!

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Mary Shand, Museum Volunteer and Moray Society Board Member, is back on the blog with some thoughts about the humble loaf.

Our Daily Bread

During our recent lockdown, people began to look for ways to occupy the huge amount of time they suddenly had at home. Baking of all sorts became the “in” thing. Bread making especially seemed to excite the populace.

Of course, bread, in a multitude of forms, has been made for many thousands of years by people all over the world. The first breads would have been unleavened, more like flatbreads, oatcakes or pancakes. Many different types of grain (wheat, barley, oats, rice) can be ground to make flour. When a liquid (water, milk, egg) is mixed in, it forms a dough or batter which can be cooked on hot, flat stones.

Remains of yeasted bread has been found in Neolithic sites in Switzerland, so it has been around for longer than was thought. Wild yeast is found naturally in the air and on fruits such as grapes and elderberries and can be used to ferment liquids, making beers and wines. The making of beer and bread are inextricably linked – a wooden model of a brewery with bakehouse attached was found in a tomb of the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt dated to 2000 BC. The foam from fermenting liquids is added to flour to make the dough lighter.

Making bread before any mechanisation, was a backbreaking job which seems to have been done by women, mainly. Using a flat or hollowed stone as the base, the dried grain was ground with a smaller, rounded stone to make flour which would be collected – along with ground down stone, of course. Whenever children, visiting Elgin Museum, are given the chance to make flour with one of the saddle querns, they quickly realise what a hard task it is!

The development of the rotary quern, where the top stone is turned with a handle and the grain is ground on the bottom stone, must have made the job easier. Still, no need to visit a gym to keep fit if you had to do that job for several hours every day.

Animals were then used to turn bigger versions of the rotary quern and then windmills were used by millers to grind large quantities of grains for selling to bakers who made many different types of bread. Coarse, wholemeal loaves for the ordinary folks and finer, white loaves for the rich. In Medieval times stale slices of bread (trenchers) were used as plates for the meats and vegetables that were consumed. This gave rise to the description of someone with a hearty appetite as a “good trencherman” (presumably, women weren’t supposed to eat heartily!). After the meal, the gravy-soaked slices were given to the poor – or the dogs.

Today, despite the prevalence of factory produced bread, people seem to enjoy the return to artisan breads and breadmaking at home. However, I, for one, am not anxious to return to grinding my own flour before I start! Authenticity has its limits.

Don’t get yourself in a spin with our rotary quern jigsaw puzzle! 

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Volunteer and Moray Society Board Member Mary Shand is getting hot & bothered on the subjects of fans…

Fan Club

It’s summer and the days are warm, sometimes even hot. So how does a person keep their cool? A fan, of course!
In my dictionary it says:

fan noun (plural fans)
an object or machine for making air move about so as to cool people or things (from Latin)

Fans have been used for thousands of years, made from many different materials, in all different sizes and in most parts of the world. From a simple leaf to wonderfully elaborate, bejewelled and feathered examples, fans have created cooling breezes during hot weather. They have also been used to encourage a fire to burn by supplying air, hence “fanning the flames”. Versions of them have been used as weapons or signalling devices in war. They have been used as props in dances from Imperial Japan to the Moulin Rouge. Perhaps in these coronavirus days they’ll make a comeback as mask substitutes and there will be a whole new “fan etiquette”!

In the Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb, beautiful fan holders, worked in gold, were found, with the remnants of ostrich feathers. There are sculptures showing Greek and Roman ladies carrying fans and one of the fans of the Aztec emperor, Montezuma, is in the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna. China and Japan have a long history of fans, some woven, side-mounted ones from the 2nd century having been found in a tomb in Hunan province. The folding fan seems to have been invented in Japan and taken to China in the 9th century.

From the 17th to the early 20th century, many different styles of hand fans were used as status symbols, from feathered to folding. Painted silks or lace fan leaves were mounted on carved sticks or the sticks themselves were held together with ribbon or cord. In Victorian times, the “Language of fans” allowed young people to communicate flirtatiously while being closely chaperoned by their elders. Elgin Museum has a number of fans on display and you can imagine elegantly dressed young girls at a soiree, murmuring to each other behind their fans. Perhaps giving opinions on the music, the food or the boys before them!

For anyone who is interested you can find more information online at various sites, such as The Fan Circle International or The Fan Museum, Greenwich.

Can you stand the heat of a puzzle challenge? Visit our online jigsaw puzzle page for a fan-tastic game!

If you’d like to create your own fan, visit our Education and Outreach page where you can find a guide to make a Japanese Uchiwa fan.

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Volunteer Martin Cook shares an insight into his recent work at Elgin Museum with our natural history collection.

Moths in the Museum

I began volunteering in the Museum several years ago, initially with the remit to sort through our collection of stuffed birds – to see which had some local provenance or interest and were worth keeping in our limited storage. This also led on to a reorganisation of the birds’ egg collection.

Next in line was the butterfly and moth collection. Or, I should say, butterfly and moth collections. We held at least five different collections which were a mixture of British species and foreign exotics. Unfortunately, a lot of the specimens were in a poor state of repair and an even larger number were not accompanied by any data to suggest when or where they had been collected. Their scientific worth was therefore greatly diminished. Nonetheless we were visited by an entomologist from the National Museum of Scotland who was able to identify specimens of worth and suggest possible ways ahead with the collections.

We felt that there was little we could usefully do with a collection of rather battered and largely unidentified foreign specimens that lacked any data. However, it was a different matter for the British species which we could at least identify with accuracy. It was therefore decided to amalgamate the different collections so that all specimens of any one species would be placed together.

The butterflies were relatively straightforward. Between all the collections there were representatives of nearly all the (roughly) 60 species which occur regularly in Britain and Ireland. It was a different matter with the moths. The variety of larger moths, known as macro moths, in Britain and Ireland is very much greater with close to 800 species. Micro moths come in an even more bewildering variety with around 1600 species – thankfully, the Museum has very few of these!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first step was to check all the identifications and here I was grateful to have the assistance of Roy Leverton, Banffshire Moth Recorder, and a national authority. By the time we had finished working through each of the collections we found at least one specimen of 663 of the 800 species. Clearly, by combining the specimens from all the collections a fairly comprehensive moth collection could be assembled – and I began the task.

The first step was to compile an inventory of which moths were in which drawer of which collection – a time consuming job. The main work could then begin, of re-lining the cases and carefully transferring the moths in the correct taxonomic order, together with fresh labelling. Some specimens were found to have detached wings or abdomens and where possible these were re-attached with ‘insect body cement’.

So far, I have spent three winters (one day per week) at this job and another winter season will be needed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the complexity of the task it has been rewarding and enjoyable, and we shall end up with a decent collection of UK macro moths. It is unfortunate that there is little provenance to link the specimens to the Moray area – although many of them do occur here in the wild. We shall need to think how we might display at least some of the collection once the museum reopens.

In addition to working on the museum’s collection, I use a light trap in my rural garden near Buckie to catch and identity moths – which are then released. Over the last 10 years I have caught 234 species of macro moth, of which only a tiny number are visible during the day. It is amazing how many beautiful insects are visiting our gardens under cover of darkness – and we are completely unaware of their presence!

Catching these moths in their beautiful fresh colours does of course invite comparison with our Museum specimens. Some of these are more than 100 years old and colours inevitably fade, although shapes and patterns of marking remain clear. As with all forms of nature, there is nothing to compare with what we can find alive and fresh in the countryside.

Fly over to our jigsaw puzzle page for a butterfly puzzle!

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Volunteer and Moray Society Board Member Mary Shand is back on the blog with some historical recipes to whet your appetite – please do let us know if you try them!

Historical Recipes

A savoury delight beloved in medieval times was the pasty – great as street food and for travellers – and they are often referenced in writings of the time, including Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This recipe is for Lombard Chicken Pasties, as written about in the 1300s by “The Goodman of Paris”.

Lombard Chicken Pasties

Serves 6

Ingredients:

350g/12oz shortcrust or puff pastry
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons lemon or orange juice
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½1 teaspoon ground ginger
450g/1lb thinly sliced, uncooked chicken or turkey breast meat
3 large rashers of back bacon, trimmed & cut in half

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7. Roll out the pastry and cut into 6 large (16cm/6 1/2 in) circles. Put in fridge until filling is ready.

Mix the beaten eggs with the juice, pepper & ginger. Dip the meat slices in the mix then divide among the pastry circles, putting the meat on one side and leaving a border of pastry. Lay a piece of bacon on each pile. Brush the edges of the pastry with remaining egg mixture, fold the bare pastry over the meat and seal the edges by pinching them together. Prick the pastry all over with a fork.

Bake the pasties on a baking sheet for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5 and cook for another 20-25 minutes (Cover with greaseproof paper if getting too brown.) Serve hot or cold.

And for dessert:

Pears in Compote

Serves 6

Ingredients:

474 ml/17 fl oz red wine
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon honey or sugar
152 g/5 oz sliced dates
6 pears, peeled, cored, sliced thin
Pinch salt
1-2 drops red food colouring

Method:

Poach the pears until they are tender, but not too soft. Drain well. In a pan, heat the wine, cinnamon and honey or sugar and when hot put in the dates, pears, salt and food colouring. Bring to a boil and allow to cook for several minutes, then remove from heat. Place in a dish and allow to cool before serving.

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Museums volunteers Jenny Cook and Mary Shand have been working on a new display for 2020 about our beautiful miniature Elgin Marbles. As we are currently closed, they’ve decided to bring the display to you online. Read on to find out more about the history of these tiny artworks…

Marbles in Miniature – the John Henning sculptures

By Jenny Cook and Mary Shand

In November 2003, Elgin Museum received a telephone call from a local woman who wanted to return something to the Museum which she had found in her attic.

Underneath an old issue of the Scottish Daily Express, dated 11th December 1936, was a superb set of miniatures of the “Elgin Marbles” from the Parthenon frieze. The associated paperwork confirmed the fact that the miniatures were originally a gift to Elgin Museum from Louisa, Countess of Seafield, in November 1886.

How, why or when these miniatures disappeared from the museum is not known, nevertheless some 134 years after they were gifted, they are now again available for display.

In 1799, British Diplomatist and art collector, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, was appointed British Ambassador in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which then included most of Greece.

Concerned about damage to important artworks in temples in Greece, Lord Elgin obtained full permission from the Turkish authorities to remove 15 of the original 92 marble metopes from the Parthenon frieze to transport to London. A series of shipments took many sculptures to England between 1802-1812.

John Henning, a Scottish sculptor from Paisley, was one of the first artists to gain access to the “Elgin Marbles”. He was so struck by the beauty of the sculptures that he asked to draw and make models of them.

Henning first sculpted miniature replicas in ivory but this proved unsatisfactory. Using earlier drawings to help him work out the order of the procession depicted, Henning carved miniature sunken impressions in slate, from which raised casts were made in white plaster and sold in boxed sets.

As we understand it, there are possibly only four sets of these original Henning casts in existence. It is a set of these 2” x 6” (5.08 x 15.24 cm) casts, originally owned by Louisa, Countess Seafield, that are on display in the Museum.

Also exhibited are two of John Henning’s original detailed pencil drawings of horses from the “Elgin Marbles”. They were donated, in 2014, by Andrew Douglas Alexander Thomas Bruce, 11th Earl of Elgin and 15th Earl of Kincardine, KT, CD, JP, DL.

Visit our jigsaw puzzle page to piece together a Parthenon frieze!

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Our next post is by Volunteer and Moray Society Board Member Janet Trythall, on the subject of the Museum’s architecture. Have you ever wondered why it looks so different to the other public buildings of Elgin? Read on…

Elgin Museum and Italianate architecture

By Janet Trythall

Describing the architecture of Elgin Museum, invariably I would trot out the phrase ‘and built in the Italianate-style’. In time of Coronavirus, I asked myself if I actually knew what that meant, and began some simple research into what constitutes “Italianate” and why the style was selected for the Museum.

Here is an image of the frontage of Elgin Museum, built in 1842 to the design of local architect, Thomas Mackenzie, and opened in January 1843.

Who was making the design choice?

‘The Museum is the built embodiment of Elgin’s capital of the north aspirations, founded as it was by the Elgin and Morayshire Literary and Scientific Association. The 26 gentlemen who founded the Association doubtless regarded it as the key activity which lifted Elgin above the run of provincial towns. Its architecture fits: cosmopolitan-Italianate in style, with the didactic overtones appropriate to a learned society.’

(Charles McKean, The District of Moray: an illustrated architectural guide RIAS 1987)

What was the architectural scene in Elgin at this time?

Architecture of the Georgian age (i.e. the 123 years preceding the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837) included Greek and Gothic designs, but these were as nothing to the self-confident variety of new buildings of the Victorian age in town and countryside alike. Building initiatives of the preceding period had come mainly from the landed aristocracy but now were most vigorously pursued by the merchants and manufacturers. Furthermore, a spirit of self-reliance often involved the employment of local architects, as for Elgin Museum. (from Ronald G. Cant, The Historic Architecture of Moray from a talk given in Forres 1987)

Who was Thomas Mackenzie?

He was the son of a Perthshire architect and born in 1814, making him only 25 when his design for the Museum was accepted. He had moved in 1835 to Aberdeen, to the office of Archibald Simpson (designer of St Giles Kirk, Elgin and Anderson’s Institution). Simpson had toured in Italy, as reflected in some of his late work. Mackenzie then came to Elgin in 1839, as principal assistant to William Robertson, Elgin’s “first architect”, whose design for the Museum had been accepted in 1838 but then shelved. Robertson died suddenly in 1841, and Mackenzie set up on his own. Soon after, his plan for the Museum was adopted by the Society. Unfortunately, he died in 1854, of brain fever, apparently brought on by an accident. He left a wide range of distinguished buildings in Moray, developing accomplished work in various styles including the baronial and classical. One of his sons, A. Marshall Mackenzie, was the architect chosen to design later additions to Elgin Museum.

Why did Mackenzie choose ‘the Italianate style’?

His reasoning is outlined in a report dated 20th October 1841 in the Museum archives, and in early Museum Minutes:

‘One is that it best reconciles the difficulties of sum and site, another, and not the least, that all our public buildings are designed in the Grecian style, and if we were to erect another partaking of the same characters, Strangers and Conniseurs (sic), might be inclined to say we had “too much of a good thing” ‘.

What are usually described as Italianate features and which can we see in Elgin Museum?

The style was derived from medieval Italian villas and farmhouses. The Picturesque movement, which showed a preference for asymmetry, variety, and natural landscaping, was in full swing by the mid-19th century, and helped to grow the popularity of the Italianate style. Irregular floorplans were preferred over earlier plans that championed more rigid and proportional classical ideals. The early 19th century was also the time when pattern books became popular facilitating the sharing and demonstration of building plans.

Typical Italianate features are:

• Overhanging eaves with substantial brackets.
• Shallow roof pitch, sometimes with a subsidiary flat roofed wing.
• Tall square tower with shallow pyramidal roof – sometimes the tower is also a belvedere or campanile.
• Tall, narrow windows, often with a crown that is typically in the shape of an inverted ‘U’, or if rectangular, topped with ornamented pediments (that is, a gable, usually of triangular shape, placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel).
• Lunette clerestory windows (half-round windows).

Many of these features are seen in Mackenzie’s 1844 substantial alterations to and encasement in the Italian style of St John’s Episcopal Church, Forres.

Postscript
A Mohammedan Niche from Gaur or Gauda, Bengal, India. This is the structure in the image of the Museum shown above, visible against the adjacent wall of No. 3 High Street. It was donated to the Museum by J. W. Grant, Wester Elchies in 1852 and sold to the then Royal Museum of Scotland in 1955. Grant worked for the East India Company and donated several carvings of Hindu gods also now with National Museums Scotland.

Further Reading:

Beaton, Elizabeth The designing and building of Elgin Museum, 1837 – 1843 Moray Field Club Papers 97, Moray Field Club Bulletin No 18, 1990
Cant, Ronald G. The Historic Architecture of Moray from a talk given in Forres 1987
Dictionary of Scottish Architects, entry for Thomas Mackenzie
Elgin Museum (A listing description, 1971)
McKean, Charles The District of Moray: an illustrated architectural guide RIAS 1987
St John’s Episcopal Church, Forres (A listing description, 1971)
Strutt and Parker Guides: The Italianate House

Visit our online jigsaw puzzle page for an Elgin Museum puzzle!

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Our first blog post is by Volunteer and Moray Society Board Member Mary Shand, about an old favourite who we’re sure you’ll all remember from your visits to the museum: Napoleon the Rocking Horse.

Napoleon the Rocking Horse

By Mary Shand

In the main gallery of Elgin Museum sits Napoleon, a large, beautiful, bench-style rocking horse. Dappled grey with long-hair mane and tail, he has a brown leather saddle on his back with stirrups, and reins to hold on to. He came to the museum in 1991 after a long and interesting career in education.

He was bought in the 1920s for the Low-Mustard family children. Their father had come to Elgin after World War 1, to join the solicitors’ firm of Grigor and Young. When the children outgrew their nursery playthings, the horse was passed on to the orphanage which was part of Anderson’s Institute. It remained there until the orphanage closed.

The rocking horse was then given to the Rose Nursery, named after Helen Rose, the founder. She started the school in 1920 under the Elgin Nursing Association and it was maintained by public subscription until 1946 when it was taken over by the Education Authority. The nursery was affectionately nicknamed “The Cocoa School”. It was here that the children called the horse “Napoleon”.

Toy horses appeared in numerous forms in ancient times. In the Middle Ages, “Hobby Horses”, a wooden horse head on a stick, were popular. By the 16th century these had developed into the “barrel” horse. This was a log with 4 wooden legs and a horse head on the end. Later, rocking horses, with the familiar, deeply curved rocking base, appeared.

By the 19th century, the form of carved, painted wooden horse on bow rockers had developed and the cottage industry had become a factory production. In the late 1800s, an alternative rocking mechanism was developed by Philip Marqua of Cincinnati, USA and patented in London as the “safety stand”. This is the type of rocking bench that Napoleon uses.

Visit our online jigsaw puzzle page to try a Napoleon the Rocking Horse puzzle!

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