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New Quay
350 New Quay, Aberdeen Harbour. This photograph shows the navigation channel leading from Aberdeen Harbour into the North Sea, with the North Pier in the far distance on the left. The New Quay later became part of Pocra Quay.
The Pier was built by John Smeaton in 1781 and extended on several occasions to provide better access to the harbour. At the corner of the photograph is the customs Watch House, part of which has now been converted into a seafood restaurant.
The brick obilisk in the centre is a ventilation shaft for a sewer which emptied into the channel. A newer sewer outfall has rendered it redundant.
It is popularly known as Scarty's Monument. 'Scarty' was the nickname of William Smith, one of two harbour pilots in the mid-19th century. His duty was to keep watch from the North Pier during rough weather.
Nicknames were often used in the fishing community to distinguish between people of the same surname. Treasure 34: A Selection of Original Scots Songs in Three Parts
2322 Although the union of the Parliaments between Scotland and England had taken place almost a hundred years before, as the 18th century was drawing to a close there was still much fascination regarding the differing cultures. In time, Victorian society would give this fascination a renewed vigour, helped by Queen Victoria's passion for Scotland - including the establishment of Balmoral Castle as her residence North of the border. Before that time though, in the late 1790s, books were produced offering English readers an insight into their neighbours' traditions.
One such book was entitled 'A selection of original Scots songs' edited by Franz Haydn and published between 1790 and 1794. The book is designed to introduce the reader to the music and lyrics of traditional songs in Scotland. Haydn's book reproduced the songs along with corresponding music, and also offered a glossary to help with the more obscure language.
Burns' song 'My Heart's In The Highlands' - more popularly regarded today as a poem - makes an appearance in the selected works by Franz Haydn. With the collected works produced between 1790 - 1794, this was at a time when Burns began to suffer from the illnesses which would eventually end his life just a couple of years later.
Robert Burns
Celebrated across Scotland every year, Robert Burns Day takes place on 25 January and is an opportunity to remember Scotland's Bard and his work. Known the world over as the National Poet of Scotland, Robert Burns (1759 - 1796) was born in Alloway, Ayrshire. Burns' early life was one of balance; he toiled on his family's farm by day, and was taught reading and writing by candlelight at night. He conversed in Scots, while learning passages from English texts to further his studies. Although regarded by history largely as a poet, Burns also composed many songs - perhaps his most famous work 'Auld Lang Syne' being one of the few traditionally remembered in song form. One of our treasures this month celebrates Robert Burns' work and that of many other traditional Scottish musicians. Willie Grant
2630 A portrait of Blind Willie Grant taken from East Neuk Chronicles by William Skene (1905). Grant was a pianist who would accompany performers at regular "free-and-easies" held on Thursday and Saturday nights in the Wallace Tower and Mother M'Cuag's Caledonian Hotel on Castle Street. According to Skene, whatever the song, Willie could accompany it.
Skene states that "It was not a bad job when these free-and-easies were stopped, as there was a fascination about these places that had an insidious effect on young men that was not easily shaken off, as I knew by experience." (page 35) Aberdeen Theatres: J. Scott Skinner
3394 James Scott Skinner (1843-1927) was a violinist and composer born in Banchory-Ternan. He was a regular performer on the stages of the North-East and beyond.
During his career he toured extensively including in North America. He performer as part of Walker & Company, the local cinema pioneers, and his playing was recorded many times.
Skinner was also a prolific and influential composer of violin music, particularly slow strathspeys. He wrote over 700 tunes, some of the most famous include The Bonnie Lass o' Bon Accord, The Cradle Song and The Miller o' Hirn.
He died on 17th March 1927 at his home at 25 Victoria Street, Aberdeen, after an exhausting tour of American. He is buried in Allenvale Cemetery. He wrote about his life in a book called My Life and Adventures.
This photographic portrait of James Scott Skinner is by Morgan of Aberdeen. Skinner stands dressed in formal Highland garb and holding his violin and bow. The image is the frontispiece of an edition of The Harp and Claymore. Underneath the photo his signature is accompanied by the quote "My age is a lusty winter, frostly but kindly". Treasure 19: Chapbooks
190 Chapbooks were a form of popular literature produced in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
Text was printed on both sides of a large sheet of paper which was then folded repeatedly to create a booklet of 8, 12, 24, or 32 pages, approximately 5 inches by 3 inches in size. The title page had a woodcut illustration which was not necessarily linked to the content of the chapbook but could be selected from illustrations already available in the printer's premises.
Their content was varied but included ballads, songs, folktales, jokes and riddles. They were produced in large numbers and favourite texts would be reprinted over and over again and even by different printers.
In rural areas and at markets and fairs, these little booklets were sold for a halfpenny or a penny by itinerant pedlars or chapmen who carried packs containing bootlaces, needles, thread, ribbons and other trinkets to appeal to their customers. The word "chap" probably derives from the Old English "ceapian" meaning to bargain or trade.
"Tullochgorum" is one of a series of 21 ballad chapbooks, each of 8 pages, printed by John Cumming, a merchant in Hatton of Fintray, about 10 miles north of Aberdeen. He had learnt the merchant business in Aberdeen but, when he returned to Fintray, he also set up a printing press. He sometimes included the music, as here, but for other ballads he only named a tune with which his readers would already have been familiar.
His other printing work included Alexander Watt "The Early History of Kintore" published in 1865 and James Dalgardno "Notes on the Parish of Slains and Forvie in the Olden Days" in 1876.
He died in January 1900 and is buried in the local churchyard.
The popularity of chapbooks declined as other forms of literature, including newspapers and magazines, became more accessible. The physical nature of these unbound flimsy pamphlets has meant that chapbooks have not survived in large numbers but Local Studies has a complete set of those printed by John Cumming bound together as one volume.
Collections of other Scottish chapbooks survive in various libraries and are becoming more available through online cataloguing and indexing while academic researchers are studying the role played by these small publications in their social and literary world.
Whist Drive
242 A letter announcing a whist drive organised by the Aberdeen branch of the Scottish Literature and Song Association to take place in the Square Room of the Music Hall on 8th March 1957. Treasure 73: Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1895
275 Our treasure for the month of September looks at the person responsible for collating the first dictionary of the Scottish language. Born in Glasgow in 1759, John Jamieson was the son of a Scottish minister. Following his father's path, Jamieson studied theology and became pastor of a congregation at Forfar, Angus in 1781.
Alongside his ecclesiastical work, Jamieson developed a passionate interest in the development and study of language - philology. In Forfar, Jamieson briefly met Grimur Thorkelin, the National Archivist of Denmark who was in Britain researching the links between Danish and English. Thorkelin's chief legacy was the transcription and publication of the epic medieval poem, Beowulf.
From conversation with Thorklein, Jamieson set himself upon the task of recording those words he felt were exclusive to Scotland. It would be twenty years before his lifetime's work, The Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language would be published.
Subsequent revisions, amendments and abridgements refined Jamieson's original work - refuting some claims of Gothic origin, and proposing others. Our treasure is one of the revised editions of Jamieson's original work - a later edition from 1895.
View the Treasures from our Collection interactive exhibition on the touchscreen in Central, Airyhall, Tillydrone and Mastrick libraries to find out more about John Jamieson and his work.
Wallace Nook
361 An old print from about 1840 showing the Wallace Nook on Netherkirkgate accompanied by a William Cadenhead poem. Private John M'Pherson
428 The front cover of a copy of Private John M'Pherson by Elsie S. Rae. It was a WWI poem written largely in Doric and first published in December 1917 by the Aberdeen Daily Journal Office. Mr Bannister's first night
470 A broadside from 1811 announcing the exclusive show of Mr Bannister, referred to as "the first comedian of the British stage".
This would have been the actor John (or Jack) Bannister (1760-1836). An entry, written by Joseph Knight and revised by Nilanjana Banerji, for Bannister can be found in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (available online with an active library membership). Bannister was a pupil of David Garrick, of the Drury Lane Theatre in London, and was one of the foremost comic actors of his day.
For six nights, Bannister was to perform in a comedy, Bold Stroke for a Wife, a comic song, The Tortoise-shell Tom-cat, and a farce, The Prize; or 2, 5, 3, 8.
These appearances in Aberdeen may have been part of a tour of the provinces and Ireland that Bannister commenced in 1809. His ODNB entry explains that the tour, comprising a monologue entertainment and songs, was called Bannister's Budget and was a financial, popular, and critical success.
Appealing to the expected high level of the entertainment, the reputation of the performer, and the great distance from Aberdeen to London, the theatre's manager, Mrs Mudie, hoped the public would understand slightly increased ticket prices for seats in the theatre's boxes and pit.
Tickets could be purchased from a variety of local booksellers; Messrs. Stevenson, Mortimer, Gordon, Spark and Watson or from a Mr. Phillips at the theatre's box office.
The Theatre Royal mentioned in this document, the first permanent one built in Aberdeen and opened in 1795, is no longer in use. It was turned into a church after the construction of Her Majesty's Opera House (later the Tivoli Theatre), which opened in 1872.
This playbill broadside was printed by Chalmers & Co. The document is referenced and transcribed in an Aberdeen Journal article from 26th November 1906, page 3, titled 'Two Aberdeen play-houses'. The article suggests that this might be "one of the earliest specimens of a local playbill probably in existence." |