‘C’ The letter ‘C’ is now completely transcribed from the Museum Records 3 manuscript and the entries have been matched to the Special Collections library catalogue. Highlights from this section include a variety of Georgian medical writers, a collection of pamphlets relating to the case of Elizabeth Canning, a considerable amount of books by Cicero,…
Work is progressing in the William Hunter’s Library project. The transcription of the ‘B’ section of the Trustees’ catalogue is now complete and work is now well underway on ‘C’. ‘B’ once again demonstrates the variety of texts Hunter collected and features a range of medical writers as well as literary authors. The full update…
‘William Hunter’s Library: A Transcription of the Early Catalogues’ is a one-year Wellcome Trust funded project that aims to determine which books now in the Hunterian Collection in the University of Glasgow’s Special Collections actually belonged to Hunter. The main goal is to enable analysis of Hunter’s original library by creating a fully searchable and…
I was made redundant from my main job in July but I have been lucky enough to have not one but two of my ex-employers take me on in temporary part-time roles while I looked for a new role and started forming a portfolio career for freelance work. (UPDATE: I’m delighted to say that I…
‘Articles to be left in the house’, the 1801 roup Another manuscript, also in the Library of Scotland, lists items that were to be left in the house after Lady Alva’s death. These were described as Lady Alva’s property and some of them went on to be auctioned in May 1801. It is interesting to…
Portraits The Alvas displayed their most important family portraits in their dining room. Most were recent – from the previous or present generations – but there was also an ‘old family’ portrait in a white frame and ‘Three old family portraits of the Marr family white frames’.[1] These must have been gifts from Lord Alva…
Special inventories were taken for linen, coins and jewels, pamphlets, and pictures and prints found at Drumsheugh House after Jean Stirling’s death in 1797. These were designed to resolve inheritance queries raised by her step-daughter-in-law Isabella Erskine. Linen The linen inventory is particularly interesting since it includes the marks the family used to identify their…
When he died in 1796, James Erskine, Lord Alva (b. 1722) left a complex estate. One of his homes was Drumsheugh House in the West End of Edinburgh. When his descendants contested the provisions of his will early in the nineteenth century, the Court ordered that an inventory of the contents of the manor house…
David Allan painted Lord Alva and his family in 1780 and the resulting conversation piece, ‘James Erskine, Lord Alva (1722-1796) and His Family‘ is now held by the National Gallery of Scotland. Lord Alva is the small gentleman in black. His wife Jean Stirling is seated next to him and his three surviving children from…
Tales from the Session Papers Continued from Part 1 Phebe Forbes’s former brother-in-law had little sympathy for her plight. David Scot’s ‘Answers’ via advocate Andrew Pringle of 19 December 1755, did not hide his obvious dislike for his sister-in-law. He accused her of gold-digging, not just as his brother’s wife but, since she had remarried,…
