New Displays and Strange Old Customs

 

We are proud to announce that we now have a new display of archives about Deerness in the Library foyer and continuing upstairs in the Archive Searchroom . [Now over.] This display is to help promote the Deerness in 100 objects event at Deerness Hall from 24 June - 7 August.

Our display includes school log books, kirk session minutes, photos of ploughing cups and medals, and one of the Deerness Coastguard Station books.

We have also provided some nice colour photocopies of some of the contents of the archive items to the Deerness Hall for the public to view there.

We are all waiting impatiently for our day off so that we can go down to Deerness and experience it ourselves.

We have not forgotten all you pirate fans out there though - do not despair! We have copied and moved the display of Orkney Pirate archives and Tall Ships photos down to the wavy wall in the library. The wavy wall (a very apt place to put it!) is near the childrens area on the way to the Marwick Room and the Computer Room in the main part of the Library.

And just to keep you laughing through the weekend here are a couple of drawings we found recently in the Customs & Excise Records. These are instructions to Kirkwall Customs Officials to watch out for some ingenious ways of smuggling tea and lace from ships in 1834.

Archive reference: CE55/2/6 Customs and Excise Records : Board’s Orders: Board to Collector, 1834.



This sporting life

Golf is big news at the moment with Rory McIlroy winning the US Open on Sunday so we're celebrating by taking a look at the sport in Orkney. This archive photograph, taken before the First World War, shows a group of golfers playing a round. The chaperone has unfortunately fallen asleep or else I'm sure she would not allow such blatant disregard for the rules of the Royal and Ancient. Is that any way to treat your mashie niblicks?!

Tribute to Donald Hewlett

Following the sad news of the death of Donald Hewlett last week, I thought it fitting that we share some archives we have of him to thank him for founding the Kirkwall Arts Club during the second world war and for all the wonderful shows he wrote, produced, directed and starred in while in Orkney.

This is an outline of activities of the Kirkwall Arts Club while Donald Hewlett was chairman.

These are some programmes for shows he was involved in.

And here's a letter from Marjorie Linklater thanking him too.

An lastly a special message from fellow actor, Richard Bishop.



Donald Hewlett went on to star in well-known television shows like Doctor Who, Come Back Mrs Noah and It Ain't Half Hot Mum. He will be missed.

References used are from the Kirkwall Arts Club Archive D44/1/1; D44/5/11; D44/5/15 and from miscellanous gifts and deposits reference D1/219.

Fiddling with Maps

Its that time of year again when you can hear the distant sounds of skirling, fiddling, strumming, drumming and humming in the air - yes that's right its the annual Egg Scrambling Contest....

Only joking, of course its the brilliant (not biased at all) Orkney Folk Festival. And if you are in the town of Stromness or at some of the village ceilidhs these sounds won't be distant, but all around you creating a wonderful energy amongst all the locals and visitors alike.

If you're walking along the streets of Stromness or are unable to visit and wondering what it looked like in the past, here are a couple of maps to show you its development over the years. The first one is the Ordnance Survey map from 1903 and the second one is an Admiralty map from 1849. Double-click on the images to see them more clearly.


1903



References D8/W/36 [C2] Copy (in two parts) of Admiralty plan of Stromness and Kaerston [Cairston] Roads. Surveyed by F.W.L. Thomas, Lieut. Commanding. Dated 1849. (This older map is not so clear to begin with and did not copy well.)

Part of Ordnance Survey Sheet number CVI, 1903, 6"/1mile.




Ahoy me hearties! More Pirates!?!

As you've probably guessed, I'm a bit obsesssed with Pirates and so tend to spot anything related to them in any other records we have. I was looking through our Customs and Excise Shipping Registers for Orkney from 1855-1904 and found a ship with the unusual name of Pirate!

Intriguing, I thought, I wonder who would buy a ship called Pirate. It isn't a name you would instantly trust. According to the register, it was built in Stromness in 1888 by Peter Johnston Copeland who also owned 16 shares of it which amounted to a quarter. Many people invested in ships as a way of making or saving money in the nineteenth century. Each ship was divided into 64 shares. The other three owners were Elisabeth Ross, James Spence and David Smith who all had 16 shares. Then in 1898 everyone except David Smith sold their share to William Cowper Ward which meant he had 48 shares. Then in 1900 both David Smith and William Cowper Ward sold their shares onto someone else and the ship left Orkney.

Where did it go? Who bought all 64 shares? You'll never guess...(well you might)....it was Francis Drake, master mariner from Braunton in Devon!!! And this Francis Drake was a direct descendant of Sir Francis Drake of the Elisabethan age who himself was considered to be, in some places, particularly Spain,  a PIRATE!

Ok that's my last blog on pirates...for a while anyway. I promise to write about other things from now on. Maybe eggs...

Reference: CE55/11/2 Orkney Customs and Excise: Shipping Register 1855-1904

Pirates & Privateers

We have a new archive display [Now over] in the Archive Searchroom! Its all about pirates and particularly Orkney's famous pirate John Gow.

Gow was born in Wick in 1697. His family then moved to Stromness where he grew up before running away to sea. He rose to be second mate on the ship The George by 1724. When sailing from Santa Cruz on 3rd November that year, he and a few others of the crew mutinied, took over the ship and renamed it Revenge. They plundered around the coast of Spain and Madeira for a while, then came up to Orkney in 1725. Gow wanted to plunder the houses of the gentry. They raided the Honyman mansion, the Hall of Clestrain in Orphir and then headed up to Carrick House on Eday. It was here at the Calf of Eday that his ship ran aground and he was captured.  He was later tried and hanged in London.

Gow was the inspiration for Captain Cleveland in Sir Walter Scott's novel The Pirate.

Another pirate mentioned in the display is John Fullarton who, according to Ernest Marwick, possibly came from Stromness or Orphir and was known to be smuggling around the Channel Islands in the 18th century before becoming a privateer for the Royal Navy. Privateers had permission from the government to rob enemy vessels at sea. He soon became greedier and became a partner in a pirate ship with a Royal Navy captain called Keppel. He made a lot of money, some of which he spent on an estate in Orkney for his family. He was eventually shot by the wife of Captain Jones of the Isabella. She was then known as 'Mary Jones, the Pirate-Slayer'.

If you are in Orkney, please come along and see our display. It will be up until the end of June 2011 in the Archive Searchroom and I hope to put a copy of it on the wavy-wall in the library soon too.

References: D31/2/5 Ernest Marwick Collection - Orkney's Other Pirate John Fullarton and D36/3/5 R.P. Fereday papers - extract from The Pirate's Who's Who by Philip Gosse, 1924.

Which is scarier, Dr Who or Press Gangs? You decide!

Tonight's episode of Dr Who has prompted me to put up this document for you all to see about press-gangs in Orkney. It was found recently by one of our volunteers in the Balfour Collection (Reference D2/19/16) and the contents are quite shocking.

The rest of this document cannot be copied as the wax seal still holds it shut, but I have transcribed it by peering in one of the corners, the words in italics indicate handwritten inserts:

"I Do hereby Depute Lieut Wm Balfour belonging to His Majesty's Sloop Lynx under my command, to Impress Seamen, Seafaring Men and Persons whose Occupations and Callings are to work in Vessels and Boats upon Rivers, according to the Tenor of this Warrant. In Testimony whereof I have hereunto set my Hand and Seal this thirtieth day of April 1803."

In our Ernest Marwick Collection (Reference D31/1/6/15) in a transcript of a letter from Alex Skene on 6th November 1800 he states that "I assure you Sir that the impress service is to me the most unpleasant part of an officers duty and it is impossible to defend the propriety of it but on the score of necessity"

Ernest Marwick goes on to describe several places where seamen hid from the press gangs in caves and peat stacks in Orkney and of men escaping up their chimney's and hiding on cliffs.

Fereday Prize 2011

We have now finished cataloguing the photocopies of this year's Fereday Prize projects. And what an interesting bunch of subjects this year! The best thing about these projects is that they often cover the history of businesses, people and places from the 20th century and they become a wonderful addition to our existing collections of archives from earlier in history.

This year, there were two first prizes, one from Kirkwall and one from Stromness. From Stromness, Thomas Penny wrote a brilliant account of the history of Motoring in Harray which includes information on the earliest cars and buses as well as interesting interviews with some of the residents of the parish over the years and much more. It's great to read about all their stories.

From Kirkwall, Douglas Corse writes with such feeling of the Longhope Lifeboat Disaster of March 1969, when the lifeboat was lost with all her crew. Douglas has included an interview with his great auntie which adds a personal view to this tragic event and finishes with the poem The Lament for the Longhope Lifeboat by Andrew B Irvine which, he tells us, was read out at the funeral.

Other subjects covered this year were the Rural Cinema Scheme; Uranium Mining; two on Scapa School; James Flett & Sons; Argo's Bakery; the Old Manse in Evie; Mousland Farm; Stromness Police Station; boatbuilder Ian B. Richardson; J & S Hay; Birsay Community Association; the Angel Family; Orkney Weddings; Skaill House; the Russian Convoys; Grain Farm, Kirkwall; Newark Farm, Sanday; The Ba; Sebay Mill; Travelling Studs; Life at Braebuster; Norwood Antiques; Refuge in Harray; James Sinclair, Botanist and The German Flower.

If you did not receive a prize from the Orkney Heritage Society for your project, but still would like to leave a copy in the archives, we would be delighted to receive it. Just drop by sometime and we'll take a copy and give you back the original.

If you would like to see any of this year's projects, the Archive Reference number for each one begins with D70/14.

When a child is born

Rejoice readers, your usual blogger archiver is now the proud mother of a very lovely daughter! We are all cock-a-hoop at this and wish them many hours of undisturbed sleep.

They may now be considering a christening and if so this might be a good time to issue the following warning. John Firth wrote in "Reminiscences of an Orkney Parish" about the dangers of baptising a girl directly before a boy. If this happened "fears were entertained that the girl, on reaching womanhood, would be afflicted with a full flowing whisker, while the other would remain beardless to the end of his days".

Think this is unlikely? Well just take a look at the photograph below. You have been warned!

Get outta that lazy bed

William Peace published an annual Almanac for a number of years and we hold editions from 1864 until 1940. They contain lots of useful information about local traders, church ministers, local officials etc. for each year and are a useful research tool. But more than that, as you can see below in a page from the 1864 edition, they provide all sorts of general advice on how to improve your life. When I read the title "He that would thrive must rise at five!" I thought "excellent, up just in time for The Weakest Link", but on reading further I was disappointed to find that I had misunderstood.

Another section in the same edition is titled Hints to careless wives and includes this dire warning; "Despair and recklessness have been planted in many a man's heart by the untidy dress and cheerless hearth, the sour looks and chilling discontent which await him". No wonder they're all getting up at five to go off to work!

Gone Fishing

The new trout season opened on 15 March and once again men and women all over Orkney dusted off their rods and tackle for the summer ahead. Although fishing in Orkney's lochs is free Orkney Trout Fishing Association maintains fish stocks in the main lochs. The Association was formed on 8 November 1905 when a number of local gentlemen got fed up with indiscriminate use of nets spoiling their gentlemanly fun. The original membership comprised of twenty five men, including two members of parliament, three doctors, fifteen men residing in Orkney and one Admiral.



From D8/4/2/6

Some girls are bigger than others

First I must apologise for my attempt to keep the Smiths song titles link going from the last post. I'm hugely embarrased and obviously nobody should ever think that it applies to the elfin beauty below.

You're probably all too young to remember Mary Marquis but never mind Angela Rippon, Anna Ford or Jan Leeming, Mary became the face of television news in Scotland from 1968 and continued in that role for twenty years. Here she's photographed in Kirkwall in, I'm guessing, the 1970s. I'm not sure why she was in Orkney, perhaps as an early experiment in geese scaring, hence the coat.

This charming man...

In one of the collections we recently sorted through during our closure, we discovered this photograph of a very charming-looking man. He has been through the wars - literally - and we don't really want to throw him out, but if we can't identify him, we may have to. Can you help?

The thot plickens...
I've managed to extract the photo from the frame which looks like its been rescued from a fire. Phew! On the back it says that it was taken at Vivienne 20th Century Studios, London. So sadly not from Orkney, but maybe a film star?

We have a little list

Our short stocktaking closure begins today. This is a far cry from the good old days when we closed for two weeks so, in an effort to appear super organised, we've made a little list. So over the next three days we will be appraising a new collection (very dirty!), matching up retrieval slips with records, moving equipment and boxes to make room for more records and having a big bonfire in the car park.

Ok, maybe not the last one.

We will be open again at 9.15 on Thursday morning, drained from our exertions over the past few days but ready as ever to serve you our (mostly) wonderful public.

Au Revoir Archiver

Yes readers, after long and sterling service as our regular blogger archiver has finally succumbed to the strain and has been confined to home for the next year. Or, as it's sometimes known, maternity leave. Enjoy Jeremy Kyle while you have the chance archiver, your daytime viewing will soon consist of endless episodes of Peppa Pig!

Looking at the images below from D1/517, copies of a menu and programme for a farewell dinner held in honour of HMS Victorious, soon to leave Scapa Flow after World War I, I can't help feeling that we didn't put in enough effort to mark archivers departure. No songs were sung, no toasts were made, not even a short recitation. Just a few lovely homebakes and a cup of tea. Shameful!