Dunoon museum seeks Italians

A recent article in the Dunoon Observer reported that Dunoon’s Castle House Museum was eager to hear from local families of Italian descent.

The museum plans to hold an exhibition regarding the influence of these families, as they have had an influence in the area, and although they were not confined to such activities, much of the population became involved in the catering industry, as visitors to the coast over the years will have visited their chip shops, ice-cream parlours, and restaurants.

A Spokesperson for the museum said:

We are aware of the major contribution made by them in businesses, etc. The museum would like to properly record these contributions with a display of photographs and/or other memorabilia. The names of the families of which we are aware include Antonelli, Botteon, Capocci, Catignani, Drovandi, Francesco; Giarchi, Minghella, Moroni; Moscardinni, Pellicci; Porchetta, Thomas/Tomaso, Venterotti and Zambonini.

The article notes that an estimated 100,000 people in Scotland are of Italian descent or are Italian nationals, and that represents 1.9 per cent of the Scottish population.

The departure of these families is said to date back to 1890, when drought, famine, and poverty in Italy drove them to seek better prospects elsewhere.

The events of World War I saw the Scots-Italian population increase to some 4,000, and Glasgow is said to have had the third largest Italian community in the UK.

World War II saw a darker period descend on the Italian immigrant community, as Italy’s fascist tendencies resulted  in many families being split up as adult males were interred, and the remaining  family members were left to cope with mistrust, discrimination, and even violence from their former friends. Their businesses were attacked, and shop windows smashed, and it was not uncommon for the Italian owners to place pictures and details of the male members of their families in the window, showing that they were actually members of the British Army, and risking their lives fighting overseas.

The museum is open from 10.30am to 4.30pm (Sunday 2pm – 4.30pm) until October 28.

During the winter months it will be open each Wednesday morning for work to be carried out and any items can be handed in then.

Please contact John (01369) 701422 or e-mail info@castlehousemuseum.org.uk

Castle House Museum Dunoon

via MUSEUM SEEKS ITALIANS.

Darien documents go on display in NLS Edinburgh

It’s a funny thing.

A few years ago, I came across a short article in a magazine. The subject was the Darien Scheme, and it seemed to be something that was so fundamental to the Union of Scotland and England, I couldn’t understand why I had never come across it before, or had any recollection of ever being told about it at school – but in those days, I wasn’t any sort of historian, and that was a class I could never wait to get out of – but I know I never heard a word about Darien there.

A Glasgow University article on The Darien Scheme concluded:

The consequences of the failure of the Darien Scheme were wide ranging. From hastening the Act of Union to the formation of the Royal Bank of Scotland, there are few events in Scottish history whose impact can be so readily traced to the present. In all respects the Spencer Collection contributes to our intellectual understanding of a tumultuous period in Scots and indeed British history.

Strangely, ever since I wrote about Darien in April 2010, the number of items appearing online appears to have jumped.

Could there be a connection?

We’ll never know, but…

Apparently for the first time, a number of rare documents that tell the story of the Darien project and its demise are being placed on display at the National Library of Scotland (NLS) in Edinburgh. Documents featured belong to both the Royal Bank of Scotland and the library.

The exhibition runs until August 2011.

National Library of Scotland

The Darien Scheme

In summary, the scheme was inspired by banker William Paterson, and saw Scotland invest a large proportion of its wealth in setting up a colony in Central America in 1698. The plan had been to set up a trading colony in Darien (now known as Panama) in 1698. It was a disaster. Thousands died during two attempts, and Scotland was plunged into economic crisis. The failure of the scheme led to the Act of Union in 1707, and that still seems to be a problem today.

Many, more detailed and deeply analysed, accounts of the scheme can be found online.

Lodge Rothesay St John No 292 opens its door to public visit

Every time I trip over this story from The Buteman I can’t help thinking it deserves a mention.

The full story includes interviews with some of the members, and a few photographs taken inside.

Notably, a fair degree of adverse publicity levelled at the Lodge of Scotland in recent years has led to the doors being opened, so that the public and non-members can learn more about the organisation’s history, beliefs and charitable activities. The lodge on Bute has a 185 year history, and this was shown with the help of an exhibition in the hall.

Locally, members provide presents to churches for distribution to under-privileged children, and  every couple of years they carry out a sponsored tour of the West Island Way, a recognised walk which allows visitors to visit much of the island on foot, over the course of one or two days – depending on how energetic they may be feeling.

The Freemasons carry out a wide range of charity work, which is rarely publicised, and the Grand Lodge of Scotland was reported to have recently donated £250,000 to the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland.

Below is a depiction of a ritual taking place in a masonic lodge in New York, circa 1900. Perhaps one of the sources which leads to some of the odd ideas put forward by some when the Freemasons are mentioned.

Bute Connections exhibition August 1 to 9 2009

Bute Museum

Bute Connections, which opens to the public on Saturday, August 1, 2009, tells the stories of almost 30 notable people from the fields of literature, science, engineering, politics, medicine and more, and reveals how and why they are linked to Bute.

Some of the names are fairly well known on Bute and further afield – George Bennie, for example, of Bennie Railplane fame, and Henry Robertson ‘Birdie’ Bowers, who accompanied Captain Scott on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1913.

But there are others featured in the exhibition whose Bute links may not be so widely known, including George Robert Stephenson, nephew of the famous railway pioneer George Stephenson; James Dobbie, whose business grew into what we know today as the Dobbie’s Garden Centre chain; and Garfield Todd (or Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd, to give him his full name), the reformist Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia for much of the 1950s.

The exhibition, which runs until Sunday, August 9, 2009, has been put together by three members of the museum’s team of volunteers.

The exhibition runs during the museum’s normal summer opening hours, from 10.30 am to 4.3 0pm Monday to Saturday and 2.30 pm to 4.30pm on Sunday, normal museum entry charges apply: £2 for adults, £1.50 concession and £1 for children.

Unfortunately, the museum seems to have all but abandoned its own web site now, but there is an extended article on the exhibition in The Buteman:

Museum exhibit reveals Bute connections

Scots Guards collection opens for one day

Unfortunately, the news report of this one day opening only appeared on the morning of the day itself, and didn’t specify the opening date, just mentioning Saturday (the day it was created), but is still worth a mention regarding the subject.

John and Betty Hodge have filled a room in their home at Invergowrie with Scots Guards memorabilia, including medals, uniforms, weapons and pictures collected from numerous sources over the past 18 years. Mr Hodge, now 73, joined the Scots Guards in 1953 and served in Germany, Borneo, Malaya and Singapore.

Mr Hodge said of the Scots Guards, “The Scots Guards are very special. They were raised by the Marquess of Argyll in 1642 on the orders of King Charles as a bodyguard and we’ve got more battle honours than you can shake a stick at.”

It is hoped that the open day will help raise at least £1,000 for Erskine, a charity supporting former armed services personnel.

Gall cartoon exhibition

Read Gall About It, a new exhibition which can be found in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library located in the city’s North Street, and runs until May 3. Opening hours are from 9am to 8pm, Monday to Thursday, and 9am to 5pm, Friday and Saturday. Admission to the event is free.

The exhibition features the work of a legendary cartoonist from Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, who kept many newspaper readers in Glasgow amused for almost half a century.

Willie Gall, who lived on the island for much of his life, but was born in Lanark, contributed some 9,000 cartoons to the Evening Times newspaper over 49 years, had the ability to spot the essence of the humour that was unique to Glasgow, and for making the locals laugh at themselves, and the best examples have been selected to appear in an exhibition being held at Glasgow’s famous Mitchell Library.

Many will no doubt be reminded of their favourite Gall’s Grin from the past.

Doctor Who at Kelvingrove

With plenty of warning, no-one should miss the opportunity to part with a few pieces of silver and visit the Doctor Who Exhibition to be staged in Glasgow’s showpiece Kelvingrove Museum next year, 2009.

The exhibition will open in March, and run to the end of the year.

At this stage, Culture and Sport Glasgow has announced only that a fee will be levied (entrance to all Glasgow museums is free), but has not yet indicated what this will be. Checking the current venues, the Adult ticket price is £9 while the Junior ticket is £7. Family books of 2 Adult and 2 Junior tickets are priced at £7 each, which I think means £28 in Plain English.

The exhibition will first visit various locations south of the border, such as London and Cardiff.

Kelvingrove is the ONLY Scottish venue planned for the exhibition.

I’m tempted to suggest putting the cash towards a day in Blackpool, where the original Doctor Who exhibition has featured for many years, before the ‘Young Pretenders’ took over, and the BBC finally decided to dust down the Doctor from the their ‘Best Reserve’ shelf of untapped financial resources. The original depended on a good yarn, and not an abundance of special effects, contrived storylines, and (shudders) ‘celebrity’ actors and guests.

Update as of February 2009:

Exhibition Start Date : Saturday 28 March 2009. End Date : Monday 04 January 2010

Tickets now available from www.SECxtra.com or phone 08444 815 816.

Adults: £7.50 plus booking fee.

Concessions: £4.50 plus booking fee.

Family ticket: £18 plus booking fee.

Booking fee appears to be £1, but should be checked at time of purchase.

National Cold War Exhibition

The National Cold War Exhibition opened in February, as we alerted in January, and looks as if it has become a handy online resource too, being equipped with an online learning section, and an online archive.

For some reason, it shares the same irritating fascination of having a Flash header that subjects the newly arrived visitor to a wailing siren, in a similar manner to that which one has to endure every time Scotland’s Secret Bunker site is visited, presumably to impress them with the feeling of an impending nuclear attack, and machine guns. It’s not particularly clear why both sites should feel the need to assault the visitor with this sort of triviality when dealing with such a deadly serious subject – or perhaps that’s why. Either way, it’s a nuisance, especially as the siren restarts itself after a while.

They should both dump this piece of rubbish code, or have a big KILL button so it can be disabled quickly, or better still, have it silent to start with, with a button to turn it on if you’re that keen to have this greet you on every arrival.

The National site has a further irritation in that every time you visit the Archive, you are presented with a full copyright warning, and have to click an “I agree to the conditions” button every time you want to go in and take a look. The rest of the world seem to get by with Terms & Condition attached to use of their sites, so why does the National site have to overboard? It’s not as if a lot of the archive material is unique to them, and I suspect a lot will be Public Domain now, due to its age, military background, and of American origin, where copyright is less restrictive. Despite their best attempts to waste an interesting site – also not helped by presenting everything in tiny little fixed size scrollable windows – there are some less well publicised stories to be found if you dig around.

Unfortunately, things still don’t manage to improve their 0 out of 10 score for effort when you fire up the Search option, or what they refer to as “THE COLD WAR INFORMATION QUICK FINDER”. Admittedly, this works well, and will find any site contents that lies within it various categories – and that’s where the problem lies. If what you want to find out about doesn’t lie conveniently in the few categories that they present for you to search within, then your search is dead before it has started. If you want to search for something that doesn’t land in one of their categories, then you can’t enter a word to search for.

For example, I wanted to see if they had any detail of the ROC, the Royal Observer Corps, who would have been responsible for monitoring and reporting bomb detonation details, analysing their size, distance etc, and then providing observation and meteorological data to allow fallout patterns to be predicted. Are there any categories offered for people or organisation involved in the Cold War? Nope.  You can have: Display Aircraft, Missiles, Ships, Other Aircraft, Submarines, Vehicles, Biographies, Countries, Squadrons, and Timeline, but of your subject doesn’t land in one of those, which you must select first, then you can’t enter something to search for.

It’s just irritating, there’s lots of info there, and lots of pics (irritating again, as they have no captions – maybe they’re coming), and things are fine if you find it using the imposed search method, but try and stray off that line, and hunt for something off the set course, and you’re stumped.

I still like, and recommend it, just wish it was ‘better’.

Exploded: Carron, Shrapnel & Nobel in Falkirk

Running from Saturday, January 19, 2008 until Monday, March 24, 2008, Exploded: Carron, Shrapnel & Nobel in Falkirk, features items from Falkirk’s object and archive collections relating to the manufacture of explosives, munitions and artillery from the eighteenth century to the present day. The exhibition is supported by a programme of talks by experts, including Dr Tony Pollard (of BBC’s Two Men in A Trench), workshops for children in association with a team of scientists from Heriot Watt University, and a cannon firing to launch the exhibition. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to learn more about the the relatively unknown, but major role played by Falkirk in an industry which not only changed local lives and landscape, but impacted across the world.

The Carronade

Opening its first furnace in 1760, the Carron Iron Company became the largest smelting company in Europe by 1800, with some 1,000 workers. James Watt, who became the Father of Steam Power with his improvements to the steam engine, had his first momentous engine made at Carron; the Adam brothers designed fireplaces and domestic appliances for the company; and Henry Shrapnel developed his devastating exploding shell there. One of the main reasons for the company’s prosperity was the invention of a small, smooth bore, naval cannon in December 1778, The Carronade, which made a significant contribution to the cause of the British at Trafalgar, and marked the beginning of the factory’s munitions work. ‘The Iron Duke’, the Duke of Wellington trusted Carron made artillery over all others. It was also used in the American Civil War.

As well as Henry Shrapnel, Alfred Nobel would come to live and work in the area, with Falkirk making major contributions to munitions working throughout both World Wars

The exhibition will open with a cannon firing at 1:00pm on Saturday, January 19, followed by the Jacobite re-enactment group, The Earle of Loudoun’s Regiment of Foot, which will fire a small falconette at the front of Callendar House.

There is free admission to the cannon firing and launch event. All are welcome.

The Exhibition

The exhibition will feature a range of artefacts from Falkirk Council’s collections relating to the local manufacture of explosives, munitions and artillery from the 18th century up to the present day. Falkirk councillor Adrian Mahoney said, “This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the major role played by Falkirk in an industry which not only changed local lives and landscapes, but impacted across the world.“

Visitors will also be invited to try their hand at being a ‘munitionette’, a term used to describe the women who put together explosive shells on the assembly line.

The exhibition is free, and is open from Monday to Saturday each week, from 10:00am to 5:00pm daily.

Visitors should always check details with the reported venue before travelling, in case of changes.

National Cold War Exhibition to open in February

The first National Cold War Exhibition is set to open on February 8, 2006, at RAF Museum Cosford, Shropshire

Featuring many of the aircraft that played major roles, from the end of the Second World War onward, one of the museum’s aims is to show both sides this conflict, with accounts from both sides involved to give an impression of what it meant for ordinary people.

One of the most intriguing displays is that of the entire V-bomber fleet being brought together under one roof, which is something that operational restrictions and the deployment of the aircraft would not have permitted or been possible when they were in service. The V-bombers were the Victor, Valiant, and Vulcan. Each commissioned to carry Britain’s nuclear deterrent of the time, each also has it’s own unique history and design story. Produced by Handley Page, Vickers and Avro respectively, each was designed in response to a Government call for a 5,000 knot, 50,000 foot, 10,000 lb load bomber. The Government’s choice was… all three! Although the decision may appear excessive, it should be borne in mind it was made under conditions we fail to appreciate today, and and reflected the adoption of tried and tested technology, speed of production, together with the the need to adopt new technologies to ensure the continuing credibility of these aircraft. We recommend reading up on their various developments if the subject interests you.