I just completed a volunteer project to recatalogue the Signet Library’s collection of pamphlets and publications by the early eighteenth-century Edinburgh eccentric William Mitchel. Mitchel, self-styled as the ‘Tincklarian Doctor’ was a remarkable autodidact and self-publisher of some of the most extraordinary tracts, sermons and ephemera ever issued by an individual. They were available to…
A decade ago, on 19 April 2016, my ‘book of the doctoral thesis’, appeared in the distinctive yellow and blue dustjacket of Brill’s Library of the Handpress World series as Charles Areskine’s Library: Lawyers and Their Books at the Dawn of the Scottish Enlightenment. I still really like the cover image which manages – just…
My most recent last day of paid work was 26 November 2025 so I’ve been without employment for nearly three months. My most recent job was a seasonal post in visitor services so the end was not a surprise and, in fact, I had a contract extension for an extra month. So, no complaints. I…
That the petitioner was born and brought up in the town of Biggar, in the Upper-Ward of the county of Lanark. The inhabitants of that part of the country, and particularly in the town of Biggar, are very fond of the diversion, which, in the Scottish language is called curling.[1] John Valens, a tanner from…
The Signet Library’s Annual Online Exhibition for 2025 is now available. You can find it at “1890” and All That: Towards a New History of the WS Society. The Signet Library’s annual exhibitions showcase research projects, conservation, and digitisation work. I had the privilege of contributing to two sections of this year’s exhibition, the John…
‘West End Girls’ – an exhibition now open at The National Trust for Scotland’ Georgian House – offers a glimpse of the lives three young ladies who lived in or near Charlotte Square in the early nineteenth century. Curated by Antonia Laurence Allen, Regional Curator for Edinburgh and East at the National Trust for Scotland…
Last year I started transcribing a set of letters written as the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 was brewing. (I still was ‘of the University of Glasgow’ then so that description is accurate in the text of the link that follows!) The advocate Charles Cockburn of Sandybed was the Deputy Keeper of the Signet at this…
My contract on the Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers ends with the sounding of the bells at Hogmanay. So it’s a good time to do my annual catch-up post about the blogs I wrote the project. It’s been a good year with plenty of exciting topics to write about for…
Most of my blogging this year has been related to Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers. We’ve been concentrating on getting as much data as possible into our database before it’s ready for launch next spring. Even so the team managed to post a new blog almost every week that was…
The WS Society is hosting a variety of events this year to celebrate the 200th birthday of its magnificent building in Parliament Square, the Signet Library. The most recent of these was a public lecture by Robert Pirrie WS on ‘Identity, Imagination and George IV in Edinburgh, 1822’ in which he explained how he is…
