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CONTENTS
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Electric Scotland News
Electric Scotland Community
The Flag in the Wind
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Holiday Cottages
Gairloch in North-West Ross-Shire
Book of Scottish Story
Robert Burns Lives!
Scottish Notes and Queries
The Kingdom of Fife
Glasgow
Scottish Loch Scenery
Oor Mither Tongue
Poems of William Dixon Cocker
The Land of the Leal
Pipes of War
Geikie's Etchings
Town Council Seals of Scotland
Annals of the Scottish Widows Fund Life Assurance Society
William Ewart Gladstone (New Book)
An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) (New Book)
Two Centuries of Shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock (New Book)
The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune (Complete New Book)
Clan Leslie Society International
Royal Descendants: Scottish Records
Poems in the N.E. Doric
Electric Scotland News
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One of the benefits to me in providing the newsletter through our Electric Scotland Community is that I get to see how many people are viewing it. The problem with mailing lists is that while it's technically possible to tell how many people view the mailing you don't actually know how many people read it. I mean you might click on the email simply to delete it. I noticed as I do this newsletter that 779 people have viewed the last newsletter which is encouraging.
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This week I got an email in from a son who told me that his 90 year old father had died and could I thus take him off the list. He told me his father really looked forward to receiving it each week.
This reminded me that as we shuffle off this mortal coil are we leaving behind us some account of our life so that future generations will know about us? Anyone doing genealogy will know the frustration of not having parents and grand-parents around that they can ask questions off. So do remember that Electric Scotland is more than happy to receive wee biographies from you including pictures and that we have organized that our site will be available for future generations to visit and learn from. You are welcome to also send in wee videos to include with your bio. Many digital cameras do have video options these days so you can just talk into it giving a wee bit of background about yourself. That way people will not only see you but hear your voice.
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Our Toolbar
We're getting rather fond of our toolbar and one of the features in it is that we can post up a wee message to people arriving on the site telling them something of interest. Like at the moment we are telling folk about our new book "Scottish Soldiers of Fortune".
It's a wee box that comes up after you've been on the site for 2 seconds and goes away after 10 seconds. Just enough time to read it and click on the link if it is of interest. You can in fact see the last message we posted by clicking on the wee figure on the extreme right of the toolbar.
Just as I was concluding this newsletter I got a communication from the support people and it now looks like our Facebook pictures are now displaying when you click on the O circle on our toolbar. I'm hoping everyone will be able to see it now as I have put up a few hundred pictures of my time in the East Neuk of Fife.
ABOUT THE STORIES
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Some of the stories in here are just parts of a larger story so do check out the site for the full versions. You can always find the link in our "What's New" section in our site menu and at http://www.electricscotland.com/rss/whatsnew.php
Electric Scotland Community
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We still have a problem with the Links system and the company who authored the program are trying to resolve the issue so hopefully next week I will be able to report it is fixed.
I loved the message sent in about Demolition Girl where a wee girl in Dublin is trying to persuade a demolition company to blow up her school with the teachers inside! This is in fact a post from our new forum for "Writings of Donna Flood" which you can see at http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...of-Donna-Flood
The audio file was attached to the origional message but Gordon replied to the thread and included the same clip but this time through a YouTube link along with another prank the girl did with Everton Football Club.
"Why Golf is a great game" was a presentation sent into me in an email and I converted it to a pdf file and attached it to a message at http://www.electricscotland.org/show...s-a-great-game
Our community can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.org/forum.php
THE FLAG IN THE WIND
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This weeks issue was compiled by Ian Goldie. In this issue he gives us an interesting run down on Scottish newspapers.
You can read this compilation at http://www.scotsindependent.org
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
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Compiled by Beth Gay
The September 2010 issue is now available with Beth's usual mixture of clan information, genealogy advice and general news from the Scottish community. You can read this at http://www.electricscotland.com/bnft
Holiday Cottages
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These are wee tourism articles. Got in this week...
Angus and Dundee – The natural bliss of Scotland.
This can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/travel/holidayndx.htm
Gairloch in North-West Ross-Shire
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It's Records, Traditions, Inhabitants and Natural History with a Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree and a Map and Illustrations" by John H. Dixon FSA Scot. published in 1886.
We have now completed this book with the following appendix articles...
F. Records of the Presbytery of Dingwall
G. Records and Extracts relating to Sir George Hay and the Manufacture of Iron
H. Addenda on St Maelrubha, and Ecclesiastical History
You can read all these chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...loch/g2ndx.htm
Book of Scottish Story
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We've completed "Peat-Casting Time" by Thomas Gillespie which is a 2 part story and we have the seconf part up which can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/book.../story127b.htm
The other stories can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/books/story/index.htm
I might add that John found another book with some more stories and a few are not included with this book so we thought we'd bring them to you. We've added a section towards the foot of this page where we'll place them called "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life" A selection from the Papers of the Late Arthur Austin. This week we've added four stories...
The Lady of Liddesdale
The Twins
The Forgers
The Family Tryst
I also took the opportunity to add a link below that to "Wilson's Border Tales" as that is yet another collection of stories that we've had on the site for many years now and deserves a wee plug.
Robert Burns Lives!
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By Frank Shaw
No Burns article this week but I have added a couple of pdf's which I came across...
The first is "Burns and the Kirk", A Review of what the Poet did for the Religious and Social regeneration of the Scottish People by Alexander Webster (1888)
The second is "The Songs of Robert Burns" Now first printed with the melodies for which they were written with bibliography, historical notes and glossary by James C. Dick (1903) This publication includes sheet music for many of his songs which is why I thought it important to add it to our Burns section. It is however some 150Mb in size.
Frank's Burns articles can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...rank/burns.htm
Our Burns section where you can get to the books mentioned above is at http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/index.html
Scottish Notes and Queries
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This is a periodical started in 1887.
We decided to make some of these issues available for you to read and added another issue this week. These issues can be found at the foot of the page at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...spapers/notes/
The Kingdom of Fife
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Its Ballads and Legends by Robert Boucher, Jun (1899)
This week we added another chapter called "Auld Robin Gray" which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/fife/
Glasgow
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By the British Medical Association (1922)
We've added another chapter to this book, "Business Life in Glasgow". By G. B. Primrose
You can read this at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...glasgowndx.htm
Scottish Loch Scenery
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From drawings by A F Lydon with descriptive notes by Thomas A Croal (1882)
This week we added "Loch Katrine" which you can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/pictures/lochs13.htm
The other entries can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/pictures/lochs.htm
Oor Mither Tongue
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An Anthology of Scots Vernacular Verse by Ninian Macwhannell (1938)
And we've now started on the final section on "Poems Suitable for School Competitions" and we have the next four poems up which are all by W. D. Cocker as it happens...
In the Byre
Wee Freenly Doug
Contentment
The Bogle
These can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ther/index.htm
Poems of William Dixon Cocker
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We've been adding a few pages from this book each week and have now arrived at his English poems Pages 192 - 195 which you can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../cocker_wd.htm
Pipes of War
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A Record of Achievements of Pipers of Scottish and Overseas Regiments during the War of 1914 - 1918. by Brevet-Col. Sir Bruce Seton, Bart. of Abercorn, C.B. and Pipe Major John Grant. (1920)
We have now completed this book with the following chapters...
The Pipes in the everyday Life of the War. By Arthur Fetterless
The Oldest Air in the World. By Neil Munro
The Pipes: Onset. By Joseph Lee, Lieut.
Flesh to the Eagles. By Boyd Cable
The Black Chanter. By Chartles Laing Ware
The Pipes. By Edmund Candler
Here is how "The Oldest Air in the World" By Neil Munro starts...
COL MACLEAN, on two sticks, and with tartan trousers on, came down between the whins to the poles where the nets were drying, and joined the Trosdale folk in the nets' shade. 'Twas the Saturday afternoon they were frankly idling, the township people—except that the women knitted, which is a way of being indolent in the Islands—and had been listening for an hour to an heroic tale of the old sea-robber days from Patrick Macneill, the most gifted liar in the parish. A little fire of green wood burned to keep the midges off, and it was hissing like a gander.
"Take your share of the smoke and let down your weariness, darling," said one of the elder women, pushing towards the piper a herring firken. Nobody looked at his sticks nor his dragging limb—not even the children had he not been a Gael himself Maclean might have fancied his lameness was unperceived. He bitterly knew better, but pushed his sticks behind the nets as he seated himself, and seated, with his crutches absent, he was a fellow to charm the eye of maid or sergeant-major.
"Your pipes might be a widow, she's so seldom seen or heard since you came home," said one of the fishermen.
"And that's the true word," answered Col Maclean. "A widow indeed, without her man ! Never in all my life played Piob mhor but on my feet and they jaunty! I'll never put a breath again in sheep-skin. If they had only blinded me!"
There was in the company, Margaret, daughter of the bailie; she had been a toddling white-haired child when Col went to France, and had to be lifted to his knees; now she got up on them herself at a jump, and put her arms round his neck, tickling him with her fingers till he laughed.
"Oh bold one! Let Col be! " her mother commanded; "thou wilt spoil his beautiful tartan trews."
"It is Col must tell a story now," said the little one, thinking of the many he used to tell her before he became a soldier.
"It is not the time for wee folks stories," said the mother; "but maybe he will tell us something not too bloody for Sunday's eve about the Wars.
Col Maclean, for the first time, there and then, gave his tale of The Oldest Air in the World.
You can read the rest of this chapter at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...pesofwar60.htm
You can read the other chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...esofwarndx.htm
Geikie's Etchings
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This week we've added more articles...
The Rural Profilist
A Musicial Souter
You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ikie/index.htm
Town Council Seals of Scotland
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Historical, Legendary and Heraldic by Alexander Posteous
Added this week...
Earlsferry to Ellon
Falkirk to Fraserburgh
You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/council/
Annals of the Scottish Widows Fund Life Assurance Society
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During 100 years, compiled by the Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell (1914).
We've now completed this book and here is a bit from Chapter 5...
THE result of the first investigation of the affairs of the Society became widely known. Not only had the directors been able to declare one of the largest bonuses hitherto added to the policies by any Life Assurance Office, but they had also laid up a large guarantee fund, and the measure of public confidence secured became evident in the rapid increase in the number and amount of new proposals for insurance. It was natural that members and managers of the Scottish Society should compare the results of their first ten years' business with that of their foster parent, the Equitable. Making every allowance for the increased wealth of the country in 1826 as compared with 1774, the eleventh years of existence respectively of the Scottish Widows' Fund and the Equitable Society, allowing also for the greater familiarity with the benefits of life insurance which the public had acquired in the interval of fifty-two years between those dates, and setting against these favourable factors the inferiority of Edinburgh in wealth and population to London, there was good material for satisfaction in the relative progress of the two societies during their youth. In 1774 the Equitable had a premium income of £9500, representing an insured capital sum of £230,000. In 1826 the premium income of the Scottish Widows' had risen to £17,500, representing insurances to the amount of £493,000.
From this time forward the history of the Scottish Society has been one of uninterrupted progress. The field in which, at the outset, it enjoyed a complete monopoly was soon to be entered by many competing institutions. Whereas in the year 1800 there were only six life offices in the United Kingdom, in 1826 there were forty-one. Nevertheless business has never ceased to flow in upon the Scottish Widows' in annually increasing volume. The advantages of the mutual system of insurance, whereof the Scottish public showed so little readiness to avail themselves when it was first brought to their notice, became more and more fully understood as claims emerged and were settled by payments largely in excess of the sums originally assured. Before the Scottish Widows' Fund led the way in a new departure, the limited degree to which life insurance had made way in Scotland was owing to the activity of the agents of English proprietary offices, dividing the bulk of their profits among shareholders, insured persons being entitled to little or nothing more than the sums set forth in their policies. It took several years to convince the public that here was a Society dividing its entire profits periodically among those who insured with it. This feature in its Constitution the directors did not fail to bring plainly to the attention of all classes by their agents and by advertisement. Examples of the kind of statement which they were able to issue from time to time may be quoted by anticipation from a circular issued by them as on 31st December 1864, being the day on which the Society completed its fiftieth year.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/busi..._widowsndx.htm
William Ewart Gladstone
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By James Bryce (1919)
A new book we're starting on and this is yet another "Englishman" of Scottish parents. Here is the Introduction...
No man has lived in our times of whom it is so hard to speak in a concise and summary fashion as Mr. Gladstone. For forty years he was so closely associated with the public affairs of his country that the record of his parliamentary life comes near to being an outline of English politics. His activity spread itself out over many fields. He was the author of several learned and thoughtful books, and of a multitude of articles upon all sorts of subjects. He showed himself as eagerly interested in matters of classical scholarship and Christian doctrine and ecclesiastical history as in questions of national finance and foreign policy. No account of him could be complete without reviewing his actions and estimating the results of his work in all these directions. But the difficulty of describing and judging him goes deeper.
His was a singularly complex nature, a character hard to unravel. His individuality was extremely strong; all that he said or did bore its impress. Yet it was an individuality so far from being self-consistent as sometimes to seem a bundle of opposite qualities capriciously united in a single person. He might with equal truth be called, and he has been in fact called, a conservative and a revolutionary. He was dangerously impulsive, and had frequently to suffer from his impulsiveness; yet he was also not merely wary and cautious, but so astute as to have been accused of craft and dissimulation. So great was his respect for authority and tradition that he clung to views regarding the unity of Homer and the historical claims of Christian sacerdotalism which the majority of competent specialists have now rejected. So bold was he in practical matters that he transformed the British constitution, changed the course of English policy in the Orient, destroyed an established church in one part of the United Kingdom, and committed himself to the destruction of two established churches in two other parts.
He came near to being a Roman Catholic in his religious opinions, yet was for twenty years the darling leader of the English Protestant Nonconformists and the Scotch Presbyterians. No one who knew him intimately doubted his conscientious sincerity and earnestness, yet four fifths of the English upper classes were in his later years wont to regard him as a self-interested schemer who would sacrifice his country to his lust for power. Though he loved general principles, and often soared out of the sight of his audience when discussing them, he generally ended by deciding upon points of detail the question at issue. He was at different times of his life the defender and the assailant of the same institutions, yet he scarcely seemed inconsistent in doing opposite things, because his method and his arguments preserved the same type and color throughout. Any one who had at the beginning of his career discerned in him the capacity for such strange diversities and contradictions would probably have predicted that they must wreck it by making his purposes weak and his course erratic. Such a prediction would have proved true of anyone with less firmness of will and less intensity of temper. It was the persistent heat and vehemence of his character, the sustained passion which he threw into the pursuit of the object on which he was for the moment bent, that fused these dissimilar qualities and made them appear to contribute to and to increase the total force which he exerted.
You can read the chapters as we get them up at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...stone_we01.htm
An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707)
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By Robert S. Rait (1901)
Another new book we're starting on. There is a substancial introduction to this book so we'll just give you the first couple of paragraphs to set the scene...
The present volume has been published with two main objects. The writer has attempted to exhibit, in outline, the leading features of the international history of the two countries which, in 1707, became the United Kingdom. Relations with England form a large part, and the heroic part, of Scottish history, relations with Scotland a very much smaller part of English history. The result has been that in histories of England references to Anglo-Scottish relations are occasional and spasmodic, while students of Scottish history have occasionally forgotten that, in regard to her southern neighbour, the attitude of Scotland was not always on the heroic scale. Scotland appears on the horizon of English history only during well-defined epochs, leaving no trace of its existence in the intervals between these. It may be that the space given to Scotland in the ordinary histories of England is proportional to the importance of Scottish affairs, on the whole; but the importance assigned to Anglo-Scottish relations in the fourteenth century is quite disproportionate to the treatment of the same subject in the fifteenth century. Readers even of Mr. Green's famous book, may learn with surprise from Mr. Lang or Mr. Hume Brown the part played by the Scots in the loss of the English dominions in France, or may fail to understand the references to Scotland in the diplomatic correspondence of the sixteenth century.[1] There seems to be, therefore, room for a connected narrative of the attitude of the two countries towards each other, for only thus is it possible to provide the _data_ requisite for a fair appreciation of the policy of Edward I and Henry VIII, or of Elizabeth and James I. Such a narrative is here presented, in outline, and the writer has tried, as far as might be, to eliminate from his work the element of national prejudice.
The book has also another aim. The relations between England and Scotland have not been a purely political connexion. The peoples have, from an early date, been, to some extent, intermingled, and this mixture of blood renders necessary some account of the racial relationship. It has been a favourite theme of the English historians of the nineteenth century that the portions of Scotland where the Gaelic tongue has ceased to be spoken are not really Scottish, but English. "The Scots who resisted Edward", wrote Mr. Freeman, "were the English of Lothian. The true Scots, out of hatred to the 'Saxons' nearest to them, leagued with the 'Saxons' farther off."[2] Mr. Green, writing of the time of Edward I, says: "The farmer of Fife or the Lowlands, and the artisan of the towns, remained stout-hearted Northumbrian Englishmen", and he adds that "The coast districts north of the Tay were inhabited by a population of the same blood as that of the Lowlands".[3] The theory has been, at all events verbally, accepted by Mr. Lang, who describes the history of Scotland as "the record of the long resistance of the English of Scotland to England, of the long resistance of the Celts of Scotland to the English of Scotland".[4] Above all, the conception has been firmly planted in the imagination by the poet of the Lady of the Lake.
"These fertile plains, that soften'd vale,
Were once the birthright of the Gael;
The stranger came with iron hand,
And from our fathers reft the land."
We have several chapters up already and you can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cotlandndx.htm
Two Centuries of Shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock
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And yet another new book and here is a bit to introduce the book to you...
THE maintenance of an industry for two hundred years by one family, in the direct line of succession and in one locality, is almost unique in the history of western manufactures. Such a record proves that the successive generations have displayed diligence, prudence, and enterprise; otherwise it would not have been possible for them to have held continuously a foremost place in the face of incessant competition consequent upon the general advance in science, the introduction of superior constructional materials, and the invention of new machinery. It indicates also the maintenance of a high standard of workmanship as well as integrity and business capacity; because time is the most important factor in proving efficiency and in establishing credit for durability of work, without which no reputation can be retained for such a long period.
The Scotts began the building of ships in Greenock in 1711. To-day, their descendants of the sixth generation worthily maintain the high traditions which have accumulated during the intervening two hundred years. It is impossible to form an adequate conception of the service rendered by this one firm to the science of marine construction and to Britain, the leading maritime nation of the world. We should require to review in detail the successive steps: firstly, in the perfection of the sailing ship, from the sloops and brigantines of the eighteenth century, to such beautiful clippers as Scotts' Lord of the Isles, which in 1856 made the record voyage from China, and did much to wrest from the Americans the "blue ribbon" of the ocean; and, secondly, in the development of the steamship from its inception early in the nineteenth century to the leviathans of to-day. In successive epochs in the history of naval architecture the Scotts have played a creditable part, and to some of the more important improvements initiated or advanced by the firm reference will be made in our brief survey of the work done during the past two centuries. Unfortunately, some years ago, most of the old-time records were destroyed by a fire at the shipyard, so that our review of the early work is largely from contemporary publications, and is unavoidably incomplete.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../scottsndx.htm
The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune
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Their adventures and achievements in the armies of Europe by James Grant (1889).
I was starting to ocr this book onto the site but it became obvious with all the names in it that I would be better making it available in pdf format so that we wouldn't make any mistakes in the spelling of names.
Here is the Introduction...
IT is intended to give, in this work, as far as possible, a faithful record of the worth and valour of those military adventurers, the "Quentin Durwards" and "Dugald Dalgettys" of other days, who carried the name of Scotland with honour under every European banner, from the earliest period; but more particularly of those who, in the seventeenth century, by the force of circumstances such, for instance, as the union of the Crowns, which brought temporary peace at home were enabled to offer their swords and services to the monarchs of other countries.
The number of these Scottish Soldiers of Fortune was very great, and in detailing their adventures and achievements during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, not only individuals, but in some instances entire regiments, almost armies of them, will have to be dealt with; as there were fully 13,000 under Gustavus Adolphus, "the Lion of the North" (as Dugald Dalgetty has it). About the same number went at various times to Denmark, 3,000 were in Russia, some 6,000 in Holland, 3,000 in France at least, and others in Prussia, Spain, and Italy, making more than 40,000 Scottish soldiers on the Continent, exclusive of 3,000 sent to the Isle Rhe under the Earl of Morton.
Their achievements will form, it is hoped, a stirring addition to our military annals, omitted in Scottish history, and will further show how our people, in whatever land they are cast, rise above those by whom they are surrounded, as surely as oil rises above water, to quote a writer who certainly was no friend to Scotland or her fame; and how many of them won the highest honours, civil and military honours which many of their lineal descendants hold in the lands of their adoption.
It will be shown how Scotsmen trained the armies and founded the fleets of Russia; how for generations the old Scots Brigade of immortal memory was the boasted "Bulwark of Holland"; while second to none in war and glory were the Scottish Guard of the French Kings that Guard of which only four were left alive when Francis I gave up his sword on the field of Pavia. Moreover, in this new mine of Scottish history, many, it is hoped, may discover the names of ancestors, relatives, and clansmen hitherto unknown to them.
Contents
Chapter 1-6 - The Scots in Russia
Chapter 7-8 - The Scots in Prussia
Chapter 9-10 - The Scots in Austria
Chapter 11 - The Scots in Italy
Chapter 12 - The Scots in the Land of the Turban
Chapter 13 - The Scots in Denmark
Chapter 14 - The Scots in Spain and Portugal
Chapter 15-17 - The Scots in Holland and Flanders
Chapter 18-22 - The Scots in Sweden
Chapter 23-24 - The Scots in France
Chapter 25-26 - The Scots in France (continued)
Chapter 27-29 - The Scots in France (concluded)
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tune/index.htm
Clan Leslie Society International
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Got in the August 2010 newsletter which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...ters/leslieint
Royal Descendants: Scottish Records
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An interesting wee book which claims to help you trace your genealogy to Royalty.
Given that we'd all like to think we have Royalty in our genealogy family tree I thought I'd make this book available.
This is a pdf file which you can download at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ords/royal.htm
Poems in the N. E. Doric
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A Hert Warmin Twasome
A poem in N.E. Doric by John Henderson. which you can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/doggerel366.htm
And to finish here is what it means to be a Scot in Scotland :-)
Happily Unhappy
PROOF that there is none so miserable as a Scot, comes the just-published book Wha's Like Us?, subtitled On the Unrealities of being Scottish by Andrew Burnside.
Andrew tries to sum up what it means to be Scottish these days and his musings in the book include:
We won't change. We're satisfied being dissatisfied with ourselves.
Lack of initiative - a critical survival strategy for the Scot at home. It equips him to endure familiar failings, helps him avoid the criticism of getting above himself, and avoids the risk of major failure had he aspired.
The Scot imagines he's a world beater; occasionally he gets glimpses of how far he falls short of that; so he returns to the comfort blanket of myth.
Golf - quintessential game of the Scot. In it, you struggle against yourself forever and never quite win.
And that's it for now and hope you all have a good weekend :-)
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com
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Electric Scotland News
Electric Scotland Community
The Flag in the Wind
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Holiday Cottages
Gairloch in North-West Ross-Shire
Book of Scottish Story
Robert Burns Lives!
Scottish Notes and Queries
The Kingdom of Fife
Glasgow
Scottish Loch Scenery
Oor Mither Tongue
Poems of William Dixon Cocker
The Land of the Leal
Pipes of War
Geikie's Etchings
Town Council Seals of Scotland
Annals of the Scottish Widows Fund Life Assurance Society
William Ewart Gladstone (New Book)
An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) (New Book)
Two Centuries of Shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock (New Book)
The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune (Complete New Book)
Clan Leslie Society International
Royal Descendants: Scottish Records
Poems in the N.E. Doric
Electric Scotland News
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One of the benefits to me in providing the newsletter through our Electric Scotland Community is that I get to see how many people are viewing it. The problem with mailing lists is that while it's technically possible to tell how many people view the mailing you don't actually know how many people read it. I mean you might click on the email simply to delete it. I noticed as I do this newsletter that 779 people have viewed the last newsletter which is encouraging.
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This week I got an email in from a son who told me that his 90 year old father had died and could I thus take him off the list. He told me his father really looked forward to receiving it each week.
This reminded me that as we shuffle off this mortal coil are we leaving behind us some account of our life so that future generations will know about us? Anyone doing genealogy will know the frustration of not having parents and grand-parents around that they can ask questions off. So do remember that Electric Scotland is more than happy to receive wee biographies from you including pictures and that we have organized that our site will be available for future generations to visit and learn from. You are welcome to also send in wee videos to include with your bio. Many digital cameras do have video options these days so you can just talk into it giving a wee bit of background about yourself. That way people will not only see you but hear your voice.
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Our Toolbar
We're getting rather fond of our toolbar and one of the features in it is that we can post up a wee message to people arriving on the site telling them something of interest. Like at the moment we are telling folk about our new book "Scottish Soldiers of Fortune".
It's a wee box that comes up after you've been on the site for 2 seconds and goes away after 10 seconds. Just enough time to read it and click on the link if it is of interest. You can in fact see the last message we posted by clicking on the wee figure on the extreme right of the toolbar.
Just as I was concluding this newsletter I got a communication from the support people and it now looks like our Facebook pictures are now displaying when you click on the O circle on our toolbar. I'm hoping everyone will be able to see it now as I have put up a few hundred pictures of my time in the East Neuk of Fife.
ABOUT THE STORIES
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Some of the stories in here are just parts of a larger story so do check out the site for the full versions. You can always find the link in our "What's New" section in our site menu and at http://www.electricscotland.com/rss/whatsnew.php
Electric Scotland Community
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We still have a problem with the Links system and the company who authored the program are trying to resolve the issue so hopefully next week I will be able to report it is fixed.
I loved the message sent in about Demolition Girl where a wee girl in Dublin is trying to persuade a demolition company to blow up her school with the teachers inside! This is in fact a post from our new forum for "Writings of Donna Flood" which you can see at http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...of-Donna-Flood
The audio file was attached to the origional message but Gordon replied to the thread and included the same clip but this time through a YouTube link along with another prank the girl did with Everton Football Club.
"Why Golf is a great game" was a presentation sent into me in an email and I converted it to a pdf file and attached it to a message at http://www.electricscotland.org/show...s-a-great-game
Our community can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.org/forum.php
THE FLAG IN THE WIND
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This weeks issue was compiled by Ian Goldie. In this issue he gives us an interesting run down on Scottish newspapers.
You can read this compilation at http://www.scotsindependent.org
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
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Compiled by Beth Gay
The September 2010 issue is now available with Beth's usual mixture of clan information, genealogy advice and general news from the Scottish community. You can read this at http://www.electricscotland.com/bnft
Holiday Cottages
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These are wee tourism articles. Got in this week...
Angus and Dundee – The natural bliss of Scotland.
This can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/travel/holidayndx.htm
Gairloch in North-West Ross-Shire
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It's Records, Traditions, Inhabitants and Natural History with a Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree and a Map and Illustrations" by John H. Dixon FSA Scot. published in 1886.
We have now completed this book with the following appendix articles...
F. Records of the Presbytery of Dingwall
G. Records and Extracts relating to Sir George Hay and the Manufacture of Iron
H. Addenda on St Maelrubha, and Ecclesiastical History
You can read all these chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...loch/g2ndx.htm
Book of Scottish Story
----------------------
We've completed "Peat-Casting Time" by Thomas Gillespie which is a 2 part story and we have the seconf part up which can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/book.../story127b.htm
The other stories can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/books/story/index.htm
I might add that John found another book with some more stories and a few are not included with this book so we thought we'd bring them to you. We've added a section towards the foot of this page where we'll place them called "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life" A selection from the Papers of the Late Arthur Austin. This week we've added four stories...
The Lady of Liddesdale
The Twins
The Forgers
The Family Tryst
I also took the opportunity to add a link below that to "Wilson's Border Tales" as that is yet another collection of stories that we've had on the site for many years now and deserves a wee plug.
Robert Burns Lives!
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By Frank Shaw
No Burns article this week but I have added a couple of pdf's which I came across...
The first is "Burns and the Kirk", A Review of what the Poet did for the Religious and Social regeneration of the Scottish People by Alexander Webster (1888)
The second is "The Songs of Robert Burns" Now first printed with the melodies for which they were written with bibliography, historical notes and glossary by James C. Dick (1903) This publication includes sheet music for many of his songs which is why I thought it important to add it to our Burns section. It is however some 150Mb in size.
Frank's Burns articles can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...rank/burns.htm
Our Burns section where you can get to the books mentioned above is at http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/index.html
Scottish Notes and Queries
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This is a periodical started in 1887.
We decided to make some of these issues available for you to read and added another issue this week. These issues can be found at the foot of the page at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...spapers/notes/
The Kingdom of Fife
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Its Ballads and Legends by Robert Boucher, Jun (1899)
This week we added another chapter called "Auld Robin Gray" which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/fife/
Glasgow
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By the British Medical Association (1922)
We've added another chapter to this book, "Business Life in Glasgow". By G. B. Primrose
You can read this at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...glasgowndx.htm
Scottish Loch Scenery
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From drawings by A F Lydon with descriptive notes by Thomas A Croal (1882)
This week we added "Loch Katrine" which you can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/pictures/lochs13.htm
The other entries can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/pictures/lochs.htm
Oor Mither Tongue
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An Anthology of Scots Vernacular Verse by Ninian Macwhannell (1938)
And we've now started on the final section on "Poems Suitable for School Competitions" and we have the next four poems up which are all by W. D. Cocker as it happens...
In the Byre
Wee Freenly Doug
Contentment
The Bogle
These can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ther/index.htm
Poems of William Dixon Cocker
-----------------------------
We've been adding a few pages from this book each week and have now arrived at his English poems Pages 192 - 195 which you can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../cocker_wd.htm
Pipes of War
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A Record of Achievements of Pipers of Scottish and Overseas Regiments during the War of 1914 - 1918. by Brevet-Col. Sir Bruce Seton, Bart. of Abercorn, C.B. and Pipe Major John Grant. (1920)
We have now completed this book with the following chapters...
The Pipes in the everyday Life of the War. By Arthur Fetterless
The Oldest Air in the World. By Neil Munro
The Pipes: Onset. By Joseph Lee, Lieut.
Flesh to the Eagles. By Boyd Cable
The Black Chanter. By Chartles Laing Ware
The Pipes. By Edmund Candler
Here is how "The Oldest Air in the World" By Neil Munro starts...
COL MACLEAN, on two sticks, and with tartan trousers on, came down between the whins to the poles where the nets were drying, and joined the Trosdale folk in the nets' shade. 'Twas the Saturday afternoon they were frankly idling, the township people—except that the women knitted, which is a way of being indolent in the Islands—and had been listening for an hour to an heroic tale of the old sea-robber days from Patrick Macneill, the most gifted liar in the parish. A little fire of green wood burned to keep the midges off, and it was hissing like a gander.
"Take your share of the smoke and let down your weariness, darling," said one of the elder women, pushing towards the piper a herring firken. Nobody looked at his sticks nor his dragging limb—not even the children had he not been a Gael himself Maclean might have fancied his lameness was unperceived. He bitterly knew better, but pushed his sticks behind the nets as he seated himself, and seated, with his crutches absent, he was a fellow to charm the eye of maid or sergeant-major.
"Your pipes might be a widow, she's so seldom seen or heard since you came home," said one of the fishermen.
"And that's the true word," answered Col Maclean. "A widow indeed, without her man ! Never in all my life played Piob mhor but on my feet and they jaunty! I'll never put a breath again in sheep-skin. If they had only blinded me!"
There was in the company, Margaret, daughter of the bailie; she had been a toddling white-haired child when Col went to France, and had to be lifted to his knees; now she got up on them herself at a jump, and put her arms round his neck, tickling him with her fingers till he laughed.
"Oh bold one! Let Col be! " her mother commanded; "thou wilt spoil his beautiful tartan trews."
"It is Col must tell a story now," said the little one, thinking of the many he used to tell her before he became a soldier.
"It is not the time for wee folks stories," said the mother; "but maybe he will tell us something not too bloody for Sunday's eve about the Wars.
Col Maclean, for the first time, there and then, gave his tale of The Oldest Air in the World.
You can read the rest of this chapter at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...pesofwar60.htm
You can read the other chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...esofwarndx.htm
Geikie's Etchings
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This week we've added more articles...
The Rural Profilist
A Musicial Souter
You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ikie/index.htm
Town Council Seals of Scotland
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Historical, Legendary and Heraldic by Alexander Posteous
Added this week...
Earlsferry to Ellon
Falkirk to Fraserburgh
You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/council/
Annals of the Scottish Widows Fund Life Assurance Society
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During 100 years, compiled by the Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell (1914).
We've now completed this book and here is a bit from Chapter 5...
THE result of the first investigation of the affairs of the Society became widely known. Not only had the directors been able to declare one of the largest bonuses hitherto added to the policies by any Life Assurance Office, but they had also laid up a large guarantee fund, and the measure of public confidence secured became evident in the rapid increase in the number and amount of new proposals for insurance. It was natural that members and managers of the Scottish Society should compare the results of their first ten years' business with that of their foster parent, the Equitable. Making every allowance for the increased wealth of the country in 1826 as compared with 1774, the eleventh years of existence respectively of the Scottish Widows' Fund and the Equitable Society, allowing also for the greater familiarity with the benefits of life insurance which the public had acquired in the interval of fifty-two years between those dates, and setting against these favourable factors the inferiority of Edinburgh in wealth and population to London, there was good material for satisfaction in the relative progress of the two societies during their youth. In 1774 the Equitable had a premium income of £9500, representing an insured capital sum of £230,000. In 1826 the premium income of the Scottish Widows' had risen to £17,500, representing insurances to the amount of £493,000.
From this time forward the history of the Scottish Society has been one of uninterrupted progress. The field in which, at the outset, it enjoyed a complete monopoly was soon to be entered by many competing institutions. Whereas in the year 1800 there were only six life offices in the United Kingdom, in 1826 there were forty-one. Nevertheless business has never ceased to flow in upon the Scottish Widows' in annually increasing volume. The advantages of the mutual system of insurance, whereof the Scottish public showed so little readiness to avail themselves when it was first brought to their notice, became more and more fully understood as claims emerged and were settled by payments largely in excess of the sums originally assured. Before the Scottish Widows' Fund led the way in a new departure, the limited degree to which life insurance had made way in Scotland was owing to the activity of the agents of English proprietary offices, dividing the bulk of their profits among shareholders, insured persons being entitled to little or nothing more than the sums set forth in their policies. It took several years to convince the public that here was a Society dividing its entire profits periodically among those who insured with it. This feature in its Constitution the directors did not fail to bring plainly to the attention of all classes by their agents and by advertisement. Examples of the kind of statement which they were able to issue from time to time may be quoted by anticipation from a circular issued by them as on 31st December 1864, being the day on which the Society completed its fiftieth year.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/busi..._widowsndx.htm
William Ewart Gladstone
-----------------------
By James Bryce (1919)
A new book we're starting on and this is yet another "Englishman" of Scottish parents. Here is the Introduction...
No man has lived in our times of whom it is so hard to speak in a concise and summary fashion as Mr. Gladstone. For forty years he was so closely associated with the public affairs of his country that the record of his parliamentary life comes near to being an outline of English politics. His activity spread itself out over many fields. He was the author of several learned and thoughtful books, and of a multitude of articles upon all sorts of subjects. He showed himself as eagerly interested in matters of classical scholarship and Christian doctrine and ecclesiastical history as in questions of national finance and foreign policy. No account of him could be complete without reviewing his actions and estimating the results of his work in all these directions. But the difficulty of describing and judging him goes deeper.
His was a singularly complex nature, a character hard to unravel. His individuality was extremely strong; all that he said or did bore its impress. Yet it was an individuality so far from being self-consistent as sometimes to seem a bundle of opposite qualities capriciously united in a single person. He might with equal truth be called, and he has been in fact called, a conservative and a revolutionary. He was dangerously impulsive, and had frequently to suffer from his impulsiveness; yet he was also not merely wary and cautious, but so astute as to have been accused of craft and dissimulation. So great was his respect for authority and tradition that he clung to views regarding the unity of Homer and the historical claims of Christian sacerdotalism which the majority of competent specialists have now rejected. So bold was he in practical matters that he transformed the British constitution, changed the course of English policy in the Orient, destroyed an established church in one part of the United Kingdom, and committed himself to the destruction of two established churches in two other parts.
He came near to being a Roman Catholic in his religious opinions, yet was for twenty years the darling leader of the English Protestant Nonconformists and the Scotch Presbyterians. No one who knew him intimately doubted his conscientious sincerity and earnestness, yet four fifths of the English upper classes were in his later years wont to regard him as a self-interested schemer who would sacrifice his country to his lust for power. Though he loved general principles, and often soared out of the sight of his audience when discussing them, he generally ended by deciding upon points of detail the question at issue. He was at different times of his life the defender and the assailant of the same institutions, yet he scarcely seemed inconsistent in doing opposite things, because his method and his arguments preserved the same type and color throughout. Any one who had at the beginning of his career discerned in him the capacity for such strange diversities and contradictions would probably have predicted that they must wreck it by making his purposes weak and his course erratic. Such a prediction would have proved true of anyone with less firmness of will and less intensity of temper. It was the persistent heat and vehemence of his character, the sustained passion which he threw into the pursuit of the object on which he was for the moment bent, that fused these dissimilar qualities and made them appear to contribute to and to increase the total force which he exerted.
You can read the chapters as we get them up at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...stone_we01.htm
An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707)
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By Robert S. Rait (1901)
Another new book we're starting on. There is a substancial introduction to this book so we'll just give you the first couple of paragraphs to set the scene...
The present volume has been published with two main objects. The writer has attempted to exhibit, in outline, the leading features of the international history of the two countries which, in 1707, became the United Kingdom. Relations with England form a large part, and the heroic part, of Scottish history, relations with Scotland a very much smaller part of English history. The result has been that in histories of England references to Anglo-Scottish relations are occasional and spasmodic, while students of Scottish history have occasionally forgotten that, in regard to her southern neighbour, the attitude of Scotland was not always on the heroic scale. Scotland appears on the horizon of English history only during well-defined epochs, leaving no trace of its existence in the intervals between these. It may be that the space given to Scotland in the ordinary histories of England is proportional to the importance of Scottish affairs, on the whole; but the importance assigned to Anglo-Scottish relations in the fourteenth century is quite disproportionate to the treatment of the same subject in the fifteenth century. Readers even of Mr. Green's famous book, may learn with surprise from Mr. Lang or Mr. Hume Brown the part played by the Scots in the loss of the English dominions in France, or may fail to understand the references to Scotland in the diplomatic correspondence of the sixteenth century.[1] There seems to be, therefore, room for a connected narrative of the attitude of the two countries towards each other, for only thus is it possible to provide the _data_ requisite for a fair appreciation of the policy of Edward I and Henry VIII, or of Elizabeth and James I. Such a narrative is here presented, in outline, and the writer has tried, as far as might be, to eliminate from his work the element of national prejudice.
The book has also another aim. The relations between England and Scotland have not been a purely political connexion. The peoples have, from an early date, been, to some extent, intermingled, and this mixture of blood renders necessary some account of the racial relationship. It has been a favourite theme of the English historians of the nineteenth century that the portions of Scotland where the Gaelic tongue has ceased to be spoken are not really Scottish, but English. "The Scots who resisted Edward", wrote Mr. Freeman, "were the English of Lothian. The true Scots, out of hatred to the 'Saxons' nearest to them, leagued with the 'Saxons' farther off."[2] Mr. Green, writing of the time of Edward I, says: "The farmer of Fife or the Lowlands, and the artisan of the towns, remained stout-hearted Northumbrian Englishmen", and he adds that "The coast districts north of the Tay were inhabited by a population of the same blood as that of the Lowlands".[3] The theory has been, at all events verbally, accepted by Mr. Lang, who describes the history of Scotland as "the record of the long resistance of the English of Scotland to England, of the long resistance of the Celts of Scotland to the English of Scotland".[4] Above all, the conception has been firmly planted in the imagination by the poet of the Lady of the Lake.
"These fertile plains, that soften'd vale,
Were once the birthright of the Gael;
The stranger came with iron hand,
And from our fathers reft the land."
We have several chapters up already and you can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cotlandndx.htm
Two Centuries of Shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock
-------------------------------------------------------
And yet another new book and here is a bit to introduce the book to you...
THE maintenance of an industry for two hundred years by one family, in the direct line of succession and in one locality, is almost unique in the history of western manufactures. Such a record proves that the successive generations have displayed diligence, prudence, and enterprise; otherwise it would not have been possible for them to have held continuously a foremost place in the face of incessant competition consequent upon the general advance in science, the introduction of superior constructional materials, and the invention of new machinery. It indicates also the maintenance of a high standard of workmanship as well as integrity and business capacity; because time is the most important factor in proving efficiency and in establishing credit for durability of work, without which no reputation can be retained for such a long period.
The Scotts began the building of ships in Greenock in 1711. To-day, their descendants of the sixth generation worthily maintain the high traditions which have accumulated during the intervening two hundred years. It is impossible to form an adequate conception of the service rendered by this one firm to the science of marine construction and to Britain, the leading maritime nation of the world. We should require to review in detail the successive steps: firstly, in the perfection of the sailing ship, from the sloops and brigantines of the eighteenth century, to such beautiful clippers as Scotts' Lord of the Isles, which in 1856 made the record voyage from China, and did much to wrest from the Americans the "blue ribbon" of the ocean; and, secondly, in the development of the steamship from its inception early in the nineteenth century to the leviathans of to-day. In successive epochs in the history of naval architecture the Scotts have played a creditable part, and to some of the more important improvements initiated or advanced by the firm reference will be made in our brief survey of the work done during the past two centuries. Unfortunately, some years ago, most of the old-time records were destroyed by a fire at the shipyard, so that our review of the early work is largely from contemporary publications, and is unavoidably incomplete.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../scottsndx.htm
The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune
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Their adventures and achievements in the armies of Europe by James Grant (1889).
I was starting to ocr this book onto the site but it became obvious with all the names in it that I would be better making it available in pdf format so that we wouldn't make any mistakes in the spelling of names.
Here is the Introduction...
IT is intended to give, in this work, as far as possible, a faithful record of the worth and valour of those military adventurers, the "Quentin Durwards" and "Dugald Dalgettys" of other days, who carried the name of Scotland with honour under every European banner, from the earliest period; but more particularly of those who, in the seventeenth century, by the force of circumstances such, for instance, as the union of the Crowns, which brought temporary peace at home were enabled to offer their swords and services to the monarchs of other countries.
The number of these Scottish Soldiers of Fortune was very great, and in detailing their adventures and achievements during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, not only individuals, but in some instances entire regiments, almost armies of them, will have to be dealt with; as there were fully 13,000 under Gustavus Adolphus, "the Lion of the North" (as Dugald Dalgetty has it). About the same number went at various times to Denmark, 3,000 were in Russia, some 6,000 in Holland, 3,000 in France at least, and others in Prussia, Spain, and Italy, making more than 40,000 Scottish soldiers on the Continent, exclusive of 3,000 sent to the Isle Rhe under the Earl of Morton.
Their achievements will form, it is hoped, a stirring addition to our military annals, omitted in Scottish history, and will further show how our people, in whatever land they are cast, rise above those by whom they are surrounded, as surely as oil rises above water, to quote a writer who certainly was no friend to Scotland or her fame; and how many of them won the highest honours, civil and military honours which many of their lineal descendants hold in the lands of their adoption.
It will be shown how Scotsmen trained the armies and founded the fleets of Russia; how for generations the old Scots Brigade of immortal memory was the boasted "Bulwark of Holland"; while second to none in war and glory were the Scottish Guard of the French Kings that Guard of which only four were left alive when Francis I gave up his sword on the field of Pavia. Moreover, in this new mine of Scottish history, many, it is hoped, may discover the names of ancestors, relatives, and clansmen hitherto unknown to them.
Contents
Chapter 1-6 - The Scots in Russia
Chapter 7-8 - The Scots in Prussia
Chapter 9-10 - The Scots in Austria
Chapter 11 - The Scots in Italy
Chapter 12 - The Scots in the Land of the Turban
Chapter 13 - The Scots in Denmark
Chapter 14 - The Scots in Spain and Portugal
Chapter 15-17 - The Scots in Holland and Flanders
Chapter 18-22 - The Scots in Sweden
Chapter 23-24 - The Scots in France
Chapter 25-26 - The Scots in France (continued)
Chapter 27-29 - The Scots in France (concluded)
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tune/index.htm
Clan Leslie Society International
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Got in the August 2010 newsletter which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...ters/leslieint
Royal Descendants: Scottish Records
-----------------------------------
An interesting wee book which claims to help you trace your genealogy to Royalty.
Given that we'd all like to think we have Royalty in our genealogy family tree I thought I'd make this book available.
This is a pdf file which you can download at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ords/royal.htm
Poems in the N. E. Doric
------------------------
A Hert Warmin Twasome
A poem in N.E. Doric by John Henderson. which you can read at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/doggerel366.htm
And to finish here is what it means to be a Scot in Scotland :-)
Happily Unhappy
PROOF that there is none so miserable as a Scot, comes the just-published book Wha's Like Us?, subtitled On the Unrealities of being Scottish by Andrew Burnside.
Andrew tries to sum up what it means to be Scottish these days and his musings in the book include:
We won't change. We're satisfied being dissatisfied with ourselves.
Lack of initiative - a critical survival strategy for the Scot at home. It equips him to endure familiar failings, helps him avoid the criticism of getting above himself, and avoids the risk of major failure had he aspired.
The Scot imagines he's a world beater; occasionally he gets glimpses of how far he falls short of that; so he returns to the comfort blanket of myth.
Golf - quintessential game of the Scot. In it, you struggle against yourself forever and never quite win.
And that's it for now and hope you all have a good weekend :-)
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com