Family and local history

Draughtsmen hard at work in 1895

The NLS holds the archive of James Bartholomew and Sons, engravers and mapmakers. As well as being a fascinating source of information about maps and mapmaking, the archive contains extensive staff records which will prove very useful to family historians. Covering the period from the 1880s to the 1970s it contains wage books and cards, in-house magazines and a collection of photographs of staff and social events. The one here shows the firm’s draughtsmen in the 1890s.

You can take a look at items from the archive in our Maps Reading Room at Causewayside – or if you can’t visit in person, you can take advantage of our remote enquiry service to ask about particular staff members.

There is also an exhibition about the archive currently running in George IV Bridge, which is well worth a visit.

The National Library of Scotland has numerous published Rolls of Honour, which are lists of those killed in various wars. However, I found an unusual Roll of Honour in our collections recently. It is the Roll of honour, 1914-1919, Dean and St Cuthbert United Free Church. The album has a list of all the members from that particular church, both men and women, who were killed in the First World War. The rest of the volume contains black and white photographs of most of the people listed on the Roll of Honour.

Each photograph includes the name, rank and regiment of the deceased. There are British and overseas regiments represented. Most of the photographs are of men but there are two women pictured. These are Catherine Wilson, who was a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a field nursing unit, and Margaret McLean, who was in the Womens’ Army Auxiliary Corps.

A person may now set out on Sunday afternoon after divine service from Edinburgh to London; may stay a whole day in London; and be again in Edinburgh on Saturday at six in the morning!  The distance from Edinburgh to London is 400 miles. — Forty years ago, it was common for people to make their will, before setting out on a London journey.  ~~ William Creech,  1793

A quote that speaks volumes about the trials of travelling more than a few miles in the mid-18th century!  William Creech was a magistrate in Edinburgh and this quote is from letters he wrote to Sir John Sinclair, who published them in 1791 as an appendix to the first Statistical Account of Scotland.  His letters are a terrifically entertaining read as well as being an interesting snapshot of some 30 years of  everyday life in Edinburgh.

The Statistical Accounts of Scotland for 1791 and 1841 have been digitised by the University of Edinburgh. It’s a free resource and all visitors can browse, read and print pages. Access the search page by scrolling down the home page to the box labelled ‘for non-subscribers’ and selecting ‘browse scanned pages’.