‘…Each man takes a turn to keep the building in a proper state of cleanliness…’ This look at cinema and film offered to the personnel of the whaling stations in South Georgia is another of our occasional forays into the Salvesen Archive. Papers in the Christian Salvesen Archive show that cinema was an important leisure-time […]

VOLUME CREATED BY LADY NINA BALFOUR AND VICTORIA ALEXANDRINE MONTAGU SCOTT (LATER LADY LOTHIAN) Recently acquired by Edinburgh University Library is a fine bound manuscript volume of cookery and recipes compiled initially by Lady Nina Balfour of Balbirnie and then continued by Victoria Alexandrine Montagu Scott. The volume was gifted by Balfour to Scott in […]

ERNEST SHACKLETON (1874-1922) – LEADER OF THE IMPERIAL TRANS-ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 1914-1917 WHICH HAD LEFT SOUTH GEORGIA IN DECEMBER 1914 Shackleton’s Expedition and its fate has been much written about elsewhere, but in brief, and illustrated with some images from our William Speirs Bruce, Christian Salvesen & Co., and Charles Sarolea collections… read on… …Some 17-months […]

RECENT ACQUISITION OF 19th CENTURY ILLUSTRATED JAPANESE CALLIGRAPHIC MANUSCRIPT Recently arrived in to the holdings of the Centre for Research Collections (CRC) is this profusely illustrated manuscript devoted to the ceramic vessels used in the chanoyu or Japanese Tea Ceremony. The tea ceremony, also called the ‘way of tea’ is a Japanese cultural activity involving […]

FROM LETTERS IN THE HUGH MACDIARMID (C. M. GRIEVE) COLLECTIONS HERE AT EDINBURGH During this 80th anniversary of his early death, a new film adaptation of Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon is to be released on 4 December 2015. Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell who was born in Auchterless […]

AT THE BUDONGO LECTURE THEATRE, EDINBURGH ZOO, SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER 2015 This past weekend – Saturday 31 October – saw Dr. Graeme D. Eddie of the Centre for Research Collections (CRC) participate in the Penguin City Meeting of the South Georgia Association (SGA), held at the Budongo Lecture Theatre, Edinburgh Zoo. The SGA is a […]

140th ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH THE EVE OF SAINT AGNES – RECENT ACQUISITION AT CENTRE FOR RESEARCH COLLECTIONS, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Saturday 10 October 2015 marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of Charles Oppenheimer, craftsman and artist. Oppenheimer was born in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Manchester, on 10 October 1875. He was a prize-winning student at Manchester […]

THEIR BIRTHS IN NOVEMBER 1924 WERE ANNOUNCED IN THE SCOTSMAN ON THE SAME DAY… AFTER CAREERS IN THE USA, JACOBUS LOUW POTTER BECAME EXECUTIVE DEAN, FACULTY OF MEDICINE, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY, 1981, Recently added to our collections are the Papers of Dr. Jacobus L. Potter (1924-2015) and Dr. Elizabeth M. Potter (1924-1979), donated by the surviving […]

II – IN THE HUGH MACDIARMID COLLECTION…: MS LETTER FROM THE PROJECT THEATRE, GLASGOW… NEW PLAYS ‘PROJECT’ NEW IDEAS Among the many letters to Hugh MacDiarmid from producers and directors  of theatre companies across the UK and Europe,  and from editors of journals and reviews, is a couple of pieces of correspondence from the Director […]

I – IN THE HUGH MACDIARMID COLLECTION…: MS LETTER FROM DYLAN THOMAS AND MS POEM For several months work has been going on to bring order within the collections created over a number of decades around the great figures of the ‘Scottish Literary Renaissance’ of the 20th century. This work builds on the recommendations made […]