History Scotland Magazine

Vol. 5 No. 2 March/April 2005

Contents

The Fall of the House of Huntly
John Irvine

A year after Mary Stuarts arrival in Scotland in 1561 at the age of nineteen she left Edinburgh to travel to the northern reaches of her kingdom. When she returned almost four months later, her staunchest Catholic ally George Gordon, the 4th earl of Huntly, along with the most powerful members of the Gordon clan, were disgraced and ruined.

Unfinished Works
Geoffrey Stell

An overview of unfinished buildings at many sites around Scotland and Britain and the varied reasons behind their incomplete state.

The Maryhill Panels? Stephen Adams Stained Glass Workers
Ian R. Mitchell

"The glory of Glasgow is in what the unknown working class districts contain," stated James Hamilton Muir in Glasgow in 1901, a guide to the city written for the International Exhibition of that year. Few things demonstrate the truth of this comment more than do Stephen Adams set of stained glass windows, depicting twenty occupations of working men, which was formerly located in Maryhill Burgh Halls in the city.

The Conciliatory Suffragette
Dr Sarah Pedersen

It is perhaps not the first place you would look for correspondence from the likes of Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, but the Aberdeen Art Gallery houses a small collection of 56 letters dating from the early 20th century and written by and to Caroline Phillips, the honorary secretary of the Aberdeen branch of the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU). The Watt Collection, as it is known, throws some interesting light on the relationships between Scottish suffragettes and their leadership in London, and helps us to re-examine the view of the WSPU as a single-minded army obediently following the Pankhursts every ruling.

Afro-Gaelic Music in America
Dr Michael Newton

At first glance, combining African and Celtic music traditions would seem to be a novel idea, and a number of recent bands have been experimenting with this: the Afro-Celtic Sound System, MacUmba, Salsa Celtica, and others. This synthesis is, however, nothing new, for Scottish Highlanders have been interacting with other ethnicities and musical traditions in America for centuries. What makes American folk music unique, in fact, is how Native Americans, Africans and Europeans blended their inherited musical styles to come up with a new tradition. This article thows light on the relationship of Scots immigrants and their music and the Afro-Americans.

Papermaking on the Water of Leith
Alistair McCleery, David Finkelstein and Sarah Bromage

Until the mid-20th century the Water of Leith was an important manufacturing centre for Edinburgh. At the height of industrial production, there were 76 mills at work along this 24-mile stretch of river. Many of these were papermills. The authors are responsible for the SAPPHIRE project on papermaking and are based at Napier University and Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh.

News features: Building a Chambered Cairn at Spittal, Caithness.
John Barber, Andrew Heald and Paul Humphreys

Neolithic structures excavated at Warren Field, Crathes Castle Estate

Whats Cooking? Derek Hall

New carbon dates from carbonised pottery and structural timbers from excavations at 75 High Street, Perth

Ronald Cant and his Legacy. Barbara E. Crawford