History Scotland

Explore centuries of Scottish history and archaeology with fascinating features on topics from all branches and periods of Scottish history and archaeology, written by leading historians, archaeologists and museum curators. With news on the latest research, opinion, expert reviews and spotlights on the country's most significant historical archives, this lavishly-illustrated magazine has everything you need to explore Scotland's rich past.

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WRITING IN THIS ISSUE

Dr Frederick Wainwright • Ian Ralston charts the many achievements of Dr Frederick Wainwright, an archaeological pioneer in post-war Scotland

HISTORY NEWS

New evidence uncovered for BRONZE AGE BURIAL RITES • An early bronze age cemetery discovered near Helensburgh by GUARD Archaeology has revealed long-lost secrets of burial rites from bronze age Scotland

MACGIBBON AND ROSS AND THEIR PASSION FOR CASTLES • Janet Brennan Inglis takes a look at the lives and career s of David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, whose magisterial sur vey of hundreds of Scottish castles is still regarded as a masterpiece, almost 150 years later

LEADHILLS MINERS’ LIBRARY • Leadhill’s Miners’ Library, first established in 1741, was the world’s first subscription library for ordinary working people, a trailblazer in both library provision and the ‘mutual improvement’ movement. Dr John Crawford tells its story

10 MINUTES ON ...THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN • History Scotland’s consultant editor, Dr Allan Kennedy, looks into the battle of Otterburn in 1388, a major set-piece in the long history of Anglo-Scottish border skirmishing, and one that had important domestic consequences for the Scots

Stirling’s ‘lost’ Roman fort • Ahead of a new archaeological dig this summer, Dr Murray Cook presents the possible evidence for a ‘lost’ Roman fort for which he and his fellow archaeologists hope to uncover evidence this summer

GODS AND MONSTERS • The myths and legends of the classical world provided a wealth of material that Scottish Jacobites exploited to signal support for, and spread messages about, the exiled Stuarts. Dr Calum Cunningham and Dr Alan Montgomery delve into these clandestine allusions in architecture, text and material culture

BOOK REVIEWS

For the love of the land: Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir • 300 years since his birth, Liesbeth Van Hulle delves into the life and legacy of the Gaelic poet Duncan Ban MacIntyre, whose extensive body of orally-composed work is particularly notable for its affectionate treatment of MacIntyre’s native highland landscape

SIR HENRY RAEBURN and the development of Stockbridge • Sir Henry Raeburn is widely recognised as one of Scotland’s leading portrait painters.What is less well known is that he was also one of Scotland’s most successful property speculators. Barclay Price tells the story of Raeburn’s role in the development of the village of Stockbridge

DR BLAIR and the ELEPHANT PART 1 • In the first instalment of a two-part series, Andy Drummond and Dr Michiel Roscam Abbing explore the remarkable moment in 1706 when the people of Dundee awoke to discover a dead elephant lying just outside their town.Where had this unusual visitor come from, and how had it ended up perishing by an Angus roadside?

TWO YOUNG ABERDEEN QUINES transported for life • On 23 September 1835 at the Aberdeen high court of justiciary, friends Mary Ann Little - ‘betwixt fifteen and sixteen years’ - and her co-accused, Matilda Moir - ‘betwixt fourteen and fifteen years’ - were sentenced to be ‘transported beyond the seas’ for seven years. Lesley Dunbar tells their stories

‘AN AUSTERE CONSCIENCE AND AN INDEPENDENT IMAGINATION’ • Novelist James Robertson became president of the Scottish History Society in 2023. As his immediate predecessor, Dr Catriona M.M....