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Aberdeen Fish Market
2 Aberdeen Fish Market prior to the building of the covered market in 1889. Steam trawling for white fish was introduced into Aberdeen in 1882 and, in a few years, the fleet of vessels grew to number several hundred and a flourishing new industry was added to the port. Great Northern Road, Woodside
287 Today Woodside is a busy and thriving community with a dual carriageway and railway running through its heart. Modes of transport and services have changed radically over the past two hundred years but due to its location Woodside has always been part of a wider network and this has helped to drive industry and increase travel. 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. Mackie Place
1092 4-5 Mackie Place, Aberdeen.
Mackie Place takes its name from Robert Mackie, skinner, who was feuing the ground along the denburn side here in the latter half of the 18th century. The photograph shows a pair of Georgian dwelling houses dating from c.1760.
The interesting twin front gables provide a most unusual appearance, as does the two doors which are approached by an elaborate set of curved flights of steps. The house is one of Aberdeen's early buildings of quarried granite, is semi detached. Once an independent picturesque location, the area is now surrounded by tenements.
One of Aberdeen's oldest schools, Aberdeen Grammar School lies a few hundred yards to the left, now separated by Esslemont Avenue. 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. Beach Rescue Lifeguard
2466 A photographic portrait of an unknown beach rescue lifeguard.
Correspondent Ed Fowler suggests the sitter may be Willie 'Moosie' Sutherland, an accomplished swimmer, diver, and local life-guard.
In Allenvale Cemetery, there is an ornate granite memorial to Sutherland made by Messrs Bower & Florence of the Spittal Granite Works. It has an inscription that reads: "Erected by public subscription in memory of William Sutherland, in recognition of his gallantry in saving upwards of 120 lives from death by drowning. Born at Aberdeen, 19th January 1845, died 20th September, 1885. A hero in humble life interred here."
Obituaries in the local newspapers state that Sutherland worked as an assistant in the City Surveyor's Office. He was formerly a slater and had become an excellent draughtsman. Between five and six hundred people are reported as in attendance at his funeral. Bucksburn Home Guard
2688 A parade of the Bucksburn Home Guard. Children can be seen watching the soldiers, including two pipers, past by. ROBERT GORDON'S REMUNERATIVE RELATIONS WITH DANZIG
2874 In 17th century Poland, business was at its peak. At the time the country had the same population as Russia. The port town of Danzig - now known as Gdansk - was a worldwide trading centre to which many people migrated in order to make their riches.
It may be a shock to you, but in 1570 the number of Scottish immigrants in Poland was estimated to be 30,000. This is an immense number of immigrants when compared to the relatively small population of Scotland in the 16th century. One of these migrants was Robert Gordon (1668-1731), later to be the founder of Gordon's Hospital; which is now known as Robert Gordon's College and the Robert Gordon University.
Robert Gordon was a merchant trader during his time in Poland and he was successful from early on in his career. With a fortune of £10,000 amassed in Poland he invested in the rebuilding of Marischal College, lent money to estate owners and funded Robert Gordon's School for Boys.
In his Founder's Day oration of 1935, former Gordonian, Sir Alexander Roger, described presenting to the Polish government a photograph of the letter Robert Gordon wrote in 1700 from Warsaw to the people of Aberdeen, describing his plans to set-up up his hospital, and the reaction from the recipients:
"My Polish audience were more than ordinarily interested to learn what the writer of that letter, with a fortune strenuously acquired from Poland two hundred years ago, had been enabled to found a college in Scotland which today offered inestimable benefit balanced and liberal education to a thousands boys." Aberdeen Press and Journal, 27th April 1935
The image to the left is a reproduction of a painted portrait of Robert Gordon taken from The History of Robert Gordon's Hospital Aberdeen 1729 - 1881 (1896) by Robert Anderson. Aberdeen Theatres: A Nicht Wi' Burns
3371 The poster for an event at the Tivoli Theatre featuring the songs and music of Robert Burns. The show commenced on Monday 22nd January 1962 and had two performances nightly.
The show was devised and produced by William Cummings. There was a large bill of performers; Calum Kennedy, Billy Stutt, Irene Campbell, Robbie Shepherd, The Garlogie Four, Ken Swan & McGhee ("Scotland's Greatest Ventriloquist"), The Heatherisle Trio ("Scotch with a Beat"), Anne Fields, Moxon Heatherbelles, Irene Adair, Tommy Wright and Will Starr. Stonehaven-Bervie Bus
4272 A photograph showing a busy Stonehaven-Bervie horse drawn bus about to start its journey. It is taken from the Aberdeen Bon-Accord and Northern Pictorial coronation souvenir number published on 12th May 1937, page 87. This special issue was published to commemorate the crowning of George VI (1895-1952) and Queen Elizabeth (1900-2002).
This photograph is one of a number illustrating an article titled '"One Hundred and Six Years - Six Sovereigns - Four Coronations - One Lifetime" Mrs. Caird's Great Record'. The article is about the life of a long-lived resident of Stonehaven called Grace Caird, nee McPhail (1831-1937), who was known as the "Grand Old Lady of the North East." At the time of her death late in the year, she was reputed to be the second oldest woman in Scotland (The Scotsman, 27th November 1937, page 16).
The caption accompanying the photograph reads as follows:
"In Granny Caird's young days the horse bus and stagecoach called regularly at the mill in Stonehaven. Here we have the Stonehaven-Bervie 'bus' about to take its departure. It passed nearby Granny's home in Kinneff daily, but in those days Mrs Caird thought nothing of walking 20 miles a day. The 'bus' was a luxury that could be only indulged in at frequent intervals." Aberdeen Mechanics' Institute - Astronomical lectures
158 The following article, extracted from the Aberdeen Journal, shows the popularity of the Mechanics Institute and its courses:
"There is not a more efficient educational institution in the city, with the same limited means, than the Mechanics' Institute; and to extand and enlarge its means is the object of these lectures. We can assure those who have not yet visited Morison's Hall, that nowhere will they find so much amusement blended with so great an amount of useful instruction, so much to delight the eye and ravish the ear, with so much to enlighten the understanding and improve the heart".
Aberdeen Journal, May 10, 1837.
Article cited in Aberdeen Journal, May 15, 1937 ("One hundred years ago"). Treasure 8: Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management
178 During 2015, Scotland celebrates the year of Food and Drink and this theme is continued as part of the Celebrate Aberdeen weekend in August. Keeping the theme in mind we would like to reveal "The Book of Household Management" by Mrs Isabella Mary Beeton, one of the most famous cookery books ever published.
Isabella Mayson was born on 12 March 1836 in London and it was whilst studying in Heidelberg she took to pastry making which she continued to practice at a local confectioners upon her return to England. In 1856, she married Samuel Beeton, a well-known editor and publisher and began to write articles on cooking and household management for the English Woman's Domestic Magazine.
In 1861, Beeton's Book of Household Management' was published. It was an immediate success, selling over 60,000 copies in its first year of publication and nearly two million by 1868.
Isabella died young at the age of 28 on 6 February 1865 of an infection following the birth of her fourth child but Samuel Beeton went on to publish a 2nd edition in 1869. In 1888 there was a major revision, with 27 new sections which included menus, table decorations, directions for using tinned meats and a section on American, Colonial and Continental cookery.
Aberdeen City Libraries hold a copy of this entirely new edition and it is numbered "five hundred and fifty-eighth thousand". It is 1644 pages in length with 13 beautiful colour plates and 68 full page illustrations. It includes a section on menus for all seasons with menus in both English and French. It is an absolute treasure and a tribute to Mrs Beeton that a version is still reproduced today. Bank Robbery, and Reward of Five Hundred Guineas
181 A broadside detailing the robbery of the Castle Street offices of The Banking Company in Aberdeen. The document provides details of the crime and offers a reward for information leading to the capture of any of the perpetrators. The reward announcement by A. & J. Cadenhead, City Fiscals, is dated 9th May 1838.
This broadside was printed at the Aberdeen Constitutional Office by J. Davidson. Treasure 38: The J. T. McIntosh Collection
207 J. T. McIntosh was a pen name of James Murdoch Macgregor (1925-2007). Born in Paisley, MacGregor moved to Aberdeen with his family at the age of 7 and stayed in the city for the rest of his life. He studied at Aberdeen Grammar School and graduated from the University of Aberdeen with an honours degree in English and literature.
After leaving education he taught music and English at Aberdeen Grammar School and became a journalist for the Bon Accord Magazine and sub-editor of the Press and Journal newspaper. MacGregor was a prolific writer from a young age and developed his skills producing many early short stories.
After finding success submitting stories to science fiction magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, MacGregor became a full time writer in 1952. He borrowed the pseudonym J. T. McIntosh from an old school friend and from September 1951 this became his most common pen name.
Aberdeen Local Studies has collected copies of many of his better known works, including editions from around the world. His science fictions novels from the 1950s are his best remembered: World Out of Mind (1953), Born Leader (1954), One in Three Hundred (1954) and The Fittest (1955). He published regularly until the late 1970s.
To accompany our wide selection of J. T. McIntosh works we have a collection of material on the author assembled by pupils and teachers from Torry Academy. The above biography has drawn heavily on their excellent work. We also hold a copy of a fascinating interview from 1986 in which MacGregor discusses his life and work. The National Library of Scotland has a significant collection of his written works too and in 2010 acquired his literary papers and correspondence.
MacGregor remains a neglected figure, awaiting the recognition deserving of this prolific Aberdeen author. Treasure 54: On the Planting of Trees in Towns
229 Aberdeen was something of a pioneer when it came to the planting of street trees in Scotland. An article on the subject in the Aberdeen Journal from 1905 states: "As is constantly remarked by visitors, Aberdeen has great reason to be proud of its trees. In some respects, it can, in this direction, show the way to other Scottish cities."
Alongside St. Andrews, Aberdeen led the way in the extensive and effective planting of trees on city streets. This was largely due to the work of Aberdeen's first park superintendent, Robert Walker. The 1905 article states: "To those who know Mr Walker only as the busy man in charge of Victoria and Westburn Parks, the Union Terrace Gardens, the Links, and the grounds of Robert Gordon's College, the fact of his being an author may be new, but it is something to which Mr Walker can look back with pride, because the publication of 'On the Planting of Trees in Towns' was the means of stimulating the movement for tree-planting, not only in Aberdeen, but also in a good many more places in Scotland."
Walker's book, printed in 1890 at the University of Aberdeen, consists of two papers read before The North of Scotland Horticultural Association in 1889. The volume was issued by the two Aberdeen members of Mr Ruskin's Guild of Saint George after a strong request to publish was made by those unable to attend Walker's lectures. The book argues that trees should be planted not just in parks, but in city streets too: "The slight good effected by fine parks placed here or there towards the outskirts of a city is as nothing to what might be carried out by so planning and planting streets and roads, that the air might be comparatively pure and free, and the eye refreshed with green at almost every point."
The Aberdeen Journal states that the value of the book is "very much materially enhanced by illustrations of a number of our best-known trees from drawings from Sir George Reid, lithographed by Messrs Thomson and Duncan." George Reid (1841-1913) was a nationally renowned Aberdeen-born painter. A year after the publication of the book, in 1891, he was elected as the president of the Royal Scottish Academy and knighted by Queen Victoria. In 1905 he played a significant role in the extension of Aberdeen Art Gallery, determining the layout and contents of the building. He died at his home in Somerset in 1913 and was buried in St Peter's Cemetery, Aberdeen.
On the publication of Walker's book a copy was send to keen arboriculturist and habitual Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. The 1905 Aberdeen Journal article reports that, in his acknowledgement of the gift, Gladstone wrote that "he would read the book with the greatest pleasure, the subject being one in which he took a special interest." At the time, the post card with acknowledgment could still be seen framed in Mr Walker's house. The Journal article also states that the book has been unobtainable for a long time but that a copy is available to view at the Reference Department of the Public Library. Over a hundred years later this is still correct and the item now sits in our Local Studies collection.
"Trees not only afford shade and shelter," states Walker's book "but adorn the landscape and purify the air. They improve the heart as well as the taste; they refresh the body and enlighten the spirit. And the more refined the taste is, the more exquisite is the gratification that may be enjoyed from every leaf-building tree." Treasure 82: Linksfield Library
294 Did you know there were once plans to build a Branch Library on the corner of School Road and King Street? In the Library Archive we hold a set of drawings showing the proposed library, prepared by A.B. Gardner, City Architect.
In January 1938 the Sub-Committee accepted the proposal for a new library building constructed in white dressed Kemnay granite and referred the scheme for final approval to the Town Council.
Unfortunately, due to a shortage of construction workers in the City, the scheme was deferred and the outbreak of World War II further delayed the plans. Linksfield Branch Library did not open until December 1975, several hundred yards south of the original School Road site, within the newly constructed Linksfield Academy.
Linksfield Academy closed in 2002 due to falling numbers and its pupils transferred to St Machar Academy. The building was occupied by the public library, community centre and swimming pool, all of which remained open following the school closure.
Linksfield Public Library closed on 30 September 2010 after which Linksfield Academy was demolished to make way for the new Aquatics Centre on King Street.
View the Treasures from our Collections interactive exhibition on the touchscreen to find out more about the history of Linksfield Library.
A Nicht Wi' Burns
360 The poster for an event at the Tivoli Theatre featuring the songs and music of Robert Burns. The show commenced on Monday, 22nd January 1962 and had two performances nightly.
The show was devised and produced by William Cummings. There was a large bill of performers; Calum Kennedy, Billy Stutt, Irene Campbell, Robbie Shepherd, The Garlogie Four, Ken Swan & McGhee (Scottish's Greatest Ventriloquist), The Heatherisle Trio (Scotch with a Beat), Anne Fields, Moxon Heatherbelles, Irene Adair, Tommy Wright and Will Starr. Mounthooly
435 This image was digitised from Artistic Aberdeen: A Sketch Book (1932) by W. S. Percy.
The book describes the scene as follows:
"Mounthooly. This curiously-named street on the left runs only a few hundred yards from its junction with Causewayend-a name that would be more appropriate fifty years ago-and Gallowgatehead when it becomes known as King's Crescent and, a little further on, the Spital. It is part of the hilly and winding but direct route between the new city of Aberdeen and the old town, or Aulton. The name Mounthooly, although not unique, is not very common in Scotland. It has been conjectured that it means the Holy Mount, a hill on which in ancient times a chapel stood." The Guestrow
450 This image was digitised from Artistic Aberdeen: A Sketch Book (1932) by W. S. Percy.
The book describes the scene as follows:
"The Guestrow, which will not exist much longer except as a name - a demolition scheme is in progress - is one of Aberdeen's most storied streets. At one time controversy raged around the derivation of its name. Some said it meant exactly what it conveyed - that it was the row where guests were housed, and there was foundation for that. But that is too recent a matter, compared to its mention in documents hundreds of years before, in which it is described as Vicus Lemurum, the Road of the Spirits, hence the Ghaist Raw. This name is ascribed to the fact that the row at one time overlooked the city churchyard. Up to within less than a hundred years ago the Guestrow was one of Aberdeen's busiest and most convivial thoroughfares. But within the past fifty or sixty years its narrow ways and congeries of courts had become slums that were a blot on the city. Its glory departed, its actuality is departing too, and soon it will be something only to be read of in local history books or seen in drawings such as this." Aberdeen Awa'
453 This image was digitised from Artistic Aberdeen: A Sketch Book (1932) by W. S. Percy.
The book describes the scene as follows:
"Here are the old houses of the Guestrow in process of demolition. Many a scene of centuries of Aberdeen history now lies open to the air, and when the ultimate fate of the 'big houses' of the 'Gush' (the local name given to the Guestrow) is remembered the air's inroad were no bad thing. Over a hundred years ago, however, matters were very different. In 1807, for instance, Major General Macdonald, commanding the north-eastern district, gave 'an elegant ball at his house in the Guestrow to a large assemblage of the most fashionable people of the place.' By contrast it may be recalled that in the twenties of the last century the Guestrow had a "burking" house where bodies for dissection by the anatomists were received or kept. So slowly but surely the hands of time and progress set the houses and even the street itself among the ghaists of Aberdeen that was." At Aberdeen, the first Day of February, one thousand seven hundred and thirty seven years; in presence of the Provost, Ballies, Old and New Councils of the Burgh of Aberdeen.
510 A broadside like four-page notice from 1st February 1737, issued by Robert Thomson, town clerk, detailing measures to be taken to support poor decayed brethren of guild of the burgh (burgesses) and their widows and daughters. Only the front page of this item has been digitised and made available here. The full document can be consulted at Aberdeen Central Library.
The measures propose a quarterly contribution of one shilling, four shillings per annum, from each burgess of guild. This is to be collected by the Dean of Guild, who is to name four assessors for the four quarters of the town for this purpose. Burgers are also offered the option of paying a one-off contribution of twelve pound twelve shillings Scots money, which is considered to be the equal to a life-rent contribution. Burgers who fail to contribute, "are to have no benefit of this fund."
The notice details the scheme in considerable detail and how it relates to the family of burgesses. It then records the provost, baillies and council giving their approval to the arangements. |