Wheat Field with Cypresses, Saint-Remy, Oil on Canvas, 1889
Vincent Van Gogh, that glorious nutter, was born on this day in 1853. He died at the age of 37 after a short life filled with genius and despair.
Some years ago I read Martin Gayford’s book The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence. This excellent work uses old letters to reconstruct the few months Van Gogh spent living and working with Paul Gauguin in a house in Arles. I was left with the overriding feeling that Van Gogh wanted nothing more in life than to be loved and understood.
Vincent invited Gauguin to stay because he deeply admired the older man’s work and imagined he could learn much from him. In preparation for Gaugin’s arrival at the Yellow House, Vincent painted his iconic Sunflowers series just to decorate the walls of Gauguin’s room! But Van Gogh’s mental illness made him erratic and volatile and his dreams of founding a collaborative artistic commune with Gauguin rapidly fell apart.
The wonderful painting above – Wheat Field with Cypresses – was made during Van Gogh’s time at Saint-Paul Asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. I’ve visited this beautiful town a few times. It really is surrounded by those distinctive hills that Van Gogh reproduced so perfectly in his work.
I love those places, Arles and Saint-Rémy, but their beauty is tinged by thoughts of poor Vincent and his sufferings. I feel the same way about his wonderful, vibrant, disturbed and magnificent paintings.
One hundred (and six) years ago, on the 22nd October 1917, war poet Wilfred Owen paid a visit to the Advocates Library and met with Charles John Guthrie (Lord Guthrie). To commemorate the centenary I put together a very small, private exhibition in the Advocates Library. Since we’re approaching another Armistice Day, and it’s a sweet story, I decided to re-post.
Wilfred Owen’s letter to his mother, 22nd October 1917 from ‘Selected letters’ by Wilfred Owen; edited by John Bell, 2nd edition 1998
From the end of June to early November 1917, Wilfred Owen was resident at Craiglockhart War Hospital, receiving treatment for shell-shock. His doctor, Arthur Brock practised ergo therapy, ‘the cure by functioning’. Brock encouraged his patients to work and explore outdoors, and to experience the local community and culture.
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen. Written at Craiglockhart in the first half of October 1917, revised at Scarborough or possibly Ripon in January-March 1918. Copyright: British Library/The Wilfred Owen Literary Estate. Image source: First World War Poetry Digital Archive.
When Owen learned that author (and Advocate) Robert Louis Stevenson had stayed nearby as a child, he set out to visit Stevenson’s childhood haunts in the Pentland Hills. There he met Lord Guthrie who lived in Stevenson’s former house, Swanston Cottage. Stevenson’s family had spent summers at Swanston from 1867 to 1880. When Lord Guthrie took the lease in 1908 the property was much as it had been in Stevenson’s time. Wilfred Owen had tea with Lord Guthrie at Swanston, at which time the judge persuaded him to undertake some “historical research work” – leading to Owen’s visit to the Advocates Library.
Stevenson remembered Swanston Cottage with fondness and a detailed description of its unusual architecture featured in his story St. Ives: being the adventures of a French prisoner in England. Owen read St Ives while at Craiglockhart and enjoyed it so much he wrote of it to his mother, recommending she buy a copy to read herself.
Stevenson’s description of Swanston Cottage. Published in ‘St. Ives’ and reproduced by Lord Guthrie in ‘Robert Louis Stevenson: some personal recollections’, 1924
Lord Guthrie had known Stevenson at university and both men were called to the Bar in 1875. Although Stevenson soon left Edinburgh to pursue his writing career, Lord Guthrie stayed in touch with Stevenson and his family until the writer’s death in 1894.
“I remain, my dear Guthrie, your old comrade, Robert Louis Stevenson” – from a letter, dated 18th January 1880
After 3 months of treatment at Craiglockhart, Owen was deemed fit for light duties (office work) and left Edinburgh. However, by October 1918 he was back on the Western Front where he won the Military Cross for his courage and leadership. Wilfred Owen was killed at Ors on 4 November 1918, just days before the Armistice was signed.
….to remember the real women who were persecuted as witches in Scotland… Thirteen women are remembered … bringing attention to the loss of life and identity in which the witch trials resulted.
These were not witches. They were simply women: accused; often tortured; then murdered for the commission of utterly fictitious crimes.
There have been a number of projects in recent years, raising awareness of the many women who were tried and executed as witches in Scotland. The first I became aware of was the vocal and tireless, Witches of Scotland. This is a campaign seeking justice for those accused women.
The Witches of Scotland (WoS) Campaign was launched on International Women’s Day 2020 by Claire Mitchell [KC] and Zoe Venditozzi. The campaign has 3 aims: to obtain a pardon for those convicted as witches under the Witchcraft Act 1563, to obtain an apology for all those accused, and to obtain a national memorial to remember those killed as witches.
The very excellent Claire Mitchell KC, and author Zoe Venditozzi also host a podcast. They originally planned a short run of (I believe) 6 episodes, but will soon reach their 70th!
Through this podcast I learned of a project local to me, The Calder Witch Hunt, along with many, many others. They interview authors, academics and fellow campaigners. Very much worth a listen and follow.
Speaking of local “witches”, there’s a “Lizzie Brice’s Roundabout” near me. The local lore is that Lizzie Brice was a witch and, I was told, “the last witch burned in Scotland”. Everyone accepted that as truth… However, according to a booklet produced by the Local History Library, Lizzie was, happily, not accused of witchcraft.
Lizzie Bryce was a widow living in the parish of Mid Calder in the 1800s. She and her daughter were employed to house “pauper children” from Edinburgh, keeping them out of the workhouses and in the more wholesome country air.
source: West Lothian Council Local History Library, 1999
Unusually, for a poor woman, her name lived on: attached to the strip of woodland where she lived and later the roundabout built nearby, a petrol station, and a pub.
ON 13th July 1923, Miss Margaret Kidd, MA., LL.B., Edinburgh, was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates, the first woman to become a Member of Faculty. She remained to be the only woman at the Bar for more than 25 years.
1923 SLT 106
Centenary celebrations
video: “Women of Faculty: Remembering Margaret Kidd, 1923-2023“
13th July 2023 marks the centenary of Margaret Kidd’s calling.
At an event in Parliament Hall, attended by Margaret Kidd’s granddaughters and great-granddaughter, a portrait was unveiled.
new plaque, Parliament Hall
The new portrait of Margaret Kidd hangs next to that of the Right Hon. Lady Dorrian, commissioned to mark her elevation to Lord Justice Clerk, the first woman to hold that office.
William Burke was executed in Edinburgh on this day in 1829. He was convicted of killing 16 people and selling their corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.
Burke originally hailed from County Tyrone in Ireland and moved to Scotland in 1818 where he worked as a labourer on the Union Canal. Burke met Irish-born William Hare when he went to Midlothian to work on the harvest. They became friends and Burke moved into Hare’s lodging house in Edinburgh in 1827. When an elderly man died in the lodgings owing rent, Burke and Hare took the body from the coffin and sold it to Knox.
After this, they started enticing people to the lodging house where they would ply them with alcohol before smothering them and selling their corpses. After being caught by the police in October 1828, Hare turned king’s evidence and avoided being executed. Burke was found guilty and sentenced to hang.
In this recording from 1952, John Strachan from Fyvie in Aberdeenshire sings the song ‘Burke and Hare’ which is purported to contain the last words of William Burke – listen here
William Burke as he appeared at the bar. Taken in court. Portrait by George Andrew Lutenor (c. 1829). In the public domain.
I was recently asked to write a short piece – based on my post The sad history of the Faculty Mummy – for the Scottish Egyptology society newsletter. I gratefully accepted, and took the opportunity to update the story a little by investigating what exactly Dr. Sandison discovered when he was “working on the histology of such remains”. With thanks to Egyptology Scotland for the inspiration to dig a little deeper [archeology pun]
The sad history of the Faculty Mummy
As published in Scottish Pharaonic: Newsletter of Egyptology Scotland, September 2020 Vol. 20 Issue 2
Once upon a time a man lived, died, and was mummified in ‘late period’ Egypt. We know little more about him – except that death was only the beginning of his story…
The Earl of Morton In 1748 James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton presented an Egyptian mummy to the Faculty of Advocates.[1] It is unclear why the Earl bestowed this gift but it was duly accepted by the Faculty and “set up in their Library”.[2]
The Advocates Library was never a repository for books alone. From earliest times Members of Faculty collected artworks and curios alongside books and manuscripts. The Mummy was probably resident in the Laigh Hall when Samuel Johnson toured the Library in August 1773, though (advocate and biographer) James Boswell failed to mention him.
The life of Samuel Johnson: including A journal of a tour to the Hebrides, Volume 1, James Boswell, 1832, p. 333
In his Handbook to the Parliament House (1884) Faculty Treasurer James Balfour Paul makes passing yet poetic reference to:
“An old mummy…[who] slumbers in a dark corner as calmly as if it were in the tombs at Memphis” (p.78)
Pharaoh’s Daughter During its time in the “dark corners” the Faculty Mummy suffered more indignities than an Egyptian gentleman should. From partial unwrapping, to bayonet target for the Members’ Rifle Corps! During this time too, the male Mummy became known as “Pharaoh’s Daughter”. He did have a standing invitation to the Faculty’s Annual Dinner where (we are told) there were songs and toasts to the health of the Pharaoh’s Daughter.
The Scotsman, 2 June 1958, page 4
The Mummy nobody wants Eventually it was decided the Faculty didn’t need an Egyptian Mummy anymore. He was offered to the Royal Scottish Museum in 1906 but after examination the poor Mummy was “found to be in a condition unsuitable for exhibition” [3]
In 1954 the Faculty tried again to rid itself of the unwanted artefact. Cyril Aldred – assistant keeper of Art and Ethnology at the Royal Scottish Museum – examined the Mummy and returned a brief though scathing report:
“The case is dilapidated beyond hope of recovery having lost its entire outer and inner surfaces: in addition the lid is missing… The mummy itself appears at one time to have been unwrapped and then re-wrapped, a cloth of modern type replacing the outer most wrappings. It is difficult to be certain of this, however, as the liberal coating of grime tends to obscure such niceties… If [the Faculty Mummy] is never seen again by mortal eye, I can assure you that neither science, scholarship nor aesthetics will suffer in consequence” [4]
Attempts were made to locate other museums willing to take him – none were found. ‘For sale’ ads in newspapers brought no takers. When the Faculty at last tried to throw the Mummy away, even the Council cleansing department refused to uplift on the grounds it was human remains – but remains which could not be buried without a death certificate!
In May 1958 The Scotsman published a piece entitled “Riddle of the mummy nobody wants”. The amusing article detailed the farcical trouble the Faculty was experiencing in its efforts to dispose of the artefact [5].
Subsequently, the story was picked up around the world and the Faculty began receiving letters. While some correspondents wrote with (un)helpful advice on the situation, many offered the Mummy a new home (with varying degrees of credibility).
One, according to the Clerk of Faculty, had “a much more respectable offer than the others.” [6] Dr AT Sandison, a lecturer and radiologist at Glasgow University’s Pathology Department, was keen to take the mummy off the Faculty’s hands. He had “been working on the histology of such remains” and would be willing to collect.[7] On the 18th June 1958 the Faculty accepted Dr Sandison’s offer and in August the Mummy left the Advocates Library for the last time.
The Sandison Collection At the Forty-First meeting of the Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, Dr. Sandison read a paper entitled “A pathologist looks at Egyptian mummies”:
“I spent some time in the Middle East while serving in the R.A.M.C., partly at 63rd B.G.H. near Cairo and was able to visit not only the important sites at Gizeh, Memphis and Sakkarah, but also the wonderful collections in the Cairo Museum. After my return to civil life, I was reluctant to abandon all interest in Egyptology and decided that, as a pathologist in a University department, I might investigate histological structure of Egyptian mummies, this being a study in which laboratory medicine and Egyptology come together. Through the kindness of the curators of several Scottish museums, I was able to obtain samples of mummy tissues and began a series of studies which have not been without interest…” [8]
Dr. Sandison published various medical works on mummies. Articles such as “The eye in the Egyptian mummy”(1957) [9] and “Diseases in Ancient Egypt” (1980). [10] When he died his accumulated antiquities passed into the care of The Burrell Collection in Glasgow. When I contacted Senior Curator Simon R Eccles in 2008, he confirmed receipt of ‘The Sandison collection’ in 1982 – but had no information about the Faculty Mummy. He did tell me about two mummies they had in storage, neither with proper provenance… nor a head.
He described the headless artefacts as follows:
One female; her wrappings in good condition, with decoration – like painted jewellery – around her neck and wrists
The other male; in such bad condition he was little more than a skeleton…
I have a feeling that tatty auld bag of bones is the former Faculty Mummy.
So, there you have it. The sad history of the Faculty Mummy: shuffled from one dusty corner to another; prodded with pointed instruments; and now, (probably) headless and in storage. We should be thankful he’s not the sort of mummy who comes with a curse.
Footnotes: [1] ‘The affair of Lord Morton’s Mummy’, Iain Gordon Brown, Egypt through the eyes of travellers, Starkey and Kholy (eds), 2002, p.95 [2] Minute Book of the Faculty of Advocates, volume 2, 1713-1750, The Stair Society, 1980, page 237-238 [3] Faculty Records, 14 June 1906 [4] Letter from Cyril Aldred to William Beattie, 13 July 1954, [Faculty of Advocates ‘Mummy file’] [5] The Scotsman, 26th of May 1958, page 8 [6] Letter from AT Sandison to the Secretary, Faculty of Advocates, 27 May 1958 and a note (on a compliment slip) from RDI, 28 May 1958 [Faculty of Advocates ‘Mummy file’] [7] ibid. [8] Dr. A.T. Sandison, “A pathologist looks at Egyptian mummies”, The Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS SESSION 1961-62, p. 8-14 [9] A.T. Sandison, “The eye in the Egyptian mummy”, Med Hist. 1957 Oct; 1(4): 336–339 [10] A.T. Sandison, “Diseases in Ancient Egypt” in Mummies, Disease, and Ancient Cultures, Cockburn (1980), p.29-44
Vincent invited Gauguin to stay because he deeply admired the older man’s work and imagined he could learn much from him. In preparation for Gaugin’s arrival at the Yellow House, Vincent painted his iconic Sunflowers series just to decorate the walls of Gauguin’s room! But Van Gogh’s mental illness made him erratic and volatile and his dreams of founding a collaborative artistic commune with Gauguin rapidly fell apart.
A Very Fine Library 