Dr Karen McAulay explores the history of Scottish music collecting, publishing and national identity from the 18th to 20th centuries. Research Fellow at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, author of two Routledge monographs.
This morning saw the arrival of the latest issue of The Magic Lantern (no.45, December 2025) containing my article, ‘”Heart-Moving Stories” Illustrated by Magic Lantern’. I’m grateful to have had this opportunity to share a favourite bit of research, to which I alluded briefly in my recent monograph.
‘”Heart-Moving Stories” Illustrated by Magic Lantern’, The Magic Lantern no.45 (Dec 2025), pp. 11-12.
Finally, an article from me after a long spell of apparent silence. ‘Sir John Macgregor Murray: Preserver of Highland Culture, Music and Song’. Folk Music Journal vol. 13 no.1, pp.50-63.Â
The article started out as a conference paper, but I felt it deserved a wider audience. Let me share the abstract:-
Sir John MacGregor Murray is known by Scottish music historians as the man who retrieved Joseph Macdonald’s Compleat Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe. This act of transmitting a work about Highland culture was just one instance of the Highland chieftain’s involvement in facilitating the artistic output of his native country. A founder member of the Highland Society of Scotland, he traversed the Highlands in pursuit of James Macpherson’s Ossian poetry, assisted song collector Alexander Campbell in planning his own itinerary in the Highlands and Western Isles, and helped establish a piping competition in Edinburgh. Sir John was one of a number of individuals who played a mediatory role in the collecting and publication of Scottish music.
This article outlines Sir John’s role in the codifying and promotion of Highland culture, embracing literary as much as musical endeavours. It also introduces some of the other individuals who played a similar role in Scotland during the Georgian and Victorian eras.
EFDSS (English Folk Dance and Song Society) website
It would be remiss of me not to point out that Routledge’s Black Friday sale makes the e-book version of my book very affordable! (Maybe someone might even buy you it for Christmas?).
Those preferring to read a hard copy might point out to their library that there’s no time like the present…
Its forerunner, Our Ancient National Airs, is also in the sale.
There! Your Christmas reading is sorted.
Anyone who has spent any length of time on archival research will agree with me that there are days when nothing of interest really turns up! This week has been a case in point.
On the positive side (and this relates to research time beyond the archives), I used to have ONE spreadsheet listing all the significant names – and relevant dates – of the individuals I’ve encountered over the past year or so, be they Thomas Nelson editors, authors, or connected in some other capacity. I now have a second spreadsheet, charting the weird and wonderful departmental codes appearing on letters and memos to/from the Parkside (Edinburgh) and Pater Noster Row (London) offices; I’ve again listed names associated with those offices. This is likely to be of interest to me, but little interest to anyone else. Still, there’s a quiet satisfaction in having clarified who did what, where and when. Whilst I was working on that, I discovered that one of the earlier editors had previously been an HMI before joining Nelson’s. That was a gratifying discovery, even if he had been a geographer, and had nothing to do with publishing music education materials.
I’ve also continued reading a book about an individual who published a book with Nelson’s in 1935; I’ve borrowed another; and recommended a useful e-book to my home institution library. It hasn’t been a wasted week.
But, glancing through my archival notes and social media postings, there weren’t any significant discoveries. I had a long list of boxes to trawl, in my hunt for interesting correspondence with one particular author, but on Tuesday I realised I’d already seen all that was worth seeing in two boxes, whilst the third box contained ‘the editor regrets’ letters to would-be authors. (A whole boxful of dashed hopes for dozens of would-be authors, ninety-odd years before my own disappointment in an unproductive, rainy day.)
Back I went to Edinburgh yesterday, eagerly anticipating fresh discoveries. Did I find the sought-after correspondence? No. There was plenty to amuse, but I can’t say I learned anything more about music education publishing. For example, my curiosity was piqued by a book proposal for a collection of prayers. The editor wrote to a colleague that he didn’t think they wanted any prayers, but he would decide finally when he saw how the would-be author had prayed. I wish I knew what he decided!
I shook my head sorrowfully at the rather naive author who wrote to Nelson’s asking if they published a particular genre of material. I suppose in the 1930s, it was less easy to find out, but could they not have gone into a library or bookshop and ASKED? Again, there was no copy of a response.
Another book proposal that presumably foundered, was the one unappealingly entitled, ‘The Unamiable Child’. I don’t think they offered the author a contract. (More recently, wasn’t the Horrid Henry series so beloved by children and their parents, about precisely such a child? Maybe the earlier hopeful author was just ahead of their time.)
I did, however, come across some correspondence which might be of interest to a historian of domestic science education. It appears to be a long time since anyone seems to have published anything about one of QMU’s earlier forerunners, the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science. (Tom Begg wrote a book, The Excellent Women: The Origins and History of Queen Margaret College, in 1994.) But if you know anyone currently researching it, then I can advise them that 1933 saw a run of correspondence with Thomas Nelson about a book they were producing. I can let them know which folder to consult, if they’d like to follow this up!
As I approached the end of my second day in the archives, one final memo made me smile. (Again, this had absolutely nothing to do with music – I was just dutifully flicking through pages to ensure I hadn’t missed anything.) A memo was sent to three of Thomas Nelson’s Edinburgh managers in July 1956. They were warned that they might have to entertain a couple of visitors from Melbourne whilst their colleague was away. There were a couple of points that they needed to be aware of. I didn’t read past the first of these!
‘It might be wise to point out that Mr C is a teetotaller’.
Let’s hope they remembered. Reading between the lines, ‘hospitality’ was clearly not always a cup of tea and a scone!
Image by Dayoung Seo from Pixabay
Earlier this year, IASH blogged about an exciting book that Ben Fletcher-Watson and Jo Shaw would soon be releasing. And yesterday, I attended its launch – the third book of the Dangerous Women project:-
The Art of Being Dangerous: Exploring Women and Danger through Creative Expression (Leuven University Press, 2021) edited by Jo Shaw and Ben Fletcher-Watson
Dangerous Women: fifty reflections on women, power and identity (Unbound, 2022) edited by Jo Shaw, Ben Fletcher-Watson and Abrisham Ahmadzadeh
Women Who Dared: From the Infamous to the Forgotten (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) edited by Ben Fletcher-Watson and Jo Shaw
It was a lovely book launch, and we had excellent speakers, who had all contributed to the book: Jo Shaw, Sara Sheridan, Ruth Boreham and Jo Spiller.
Women who Dared is an anthology of short biographies – all of them historical ‘women who dared’. I chatted with the speakers afterwards, and enjoyed hearing more about their work. There are so very many women of note, whom history has entirely forgotten about, so books like this are both very welcome, and very necessary.
Edinburgh University Press link
You know how you buy a new car, and suddenly everyone seems to be driving the same white Fiat 500? It’s the same with research topics.
“Enthusiastic collectors of Gaelic songs and Irish harp tunes”
I researched Gaelic song-collectors Anna and Margaret Maclean-Clephane as part of my PhD (2009).
Naturally, the Maclean Clephane sisters are in my Pure institutional repository at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. I coined the above phrase, ‘enthusiastic collectors of Gaelic songs and Irish harp tunes’, using it both in my book (p.92) and my article (p.62), both in 2013.
The sisters had a book ‘printed but not published’ while they were still in their teens – you can read about it in my article, p.58. I have to say, the arrangements in their book were – well, okay, but not artistically stylish!
Margaret had a harp – there is actually a Raeburn portrait of Margaret with her harp – see below. Alexander Campbell did say the sisters played, but there’s no portrait of Anna with a harp, so we can’t prove it either way. He didn’t meet them. (There was in fact a third sister, though her musical interest didn’t seem to carry through to adulthood. ) Indeed, Anna wasn’t that hot on the piano, as I recall. They grew up on the Isle of Mull. I’ve driven past the house, Torloisk. It’s massive!
I just love researching and writing about people, particularly musicians! If they’re women musicians, then that’s all the more interesting – so it’s hardly surprising I was drawn to them, and went looking at materials in the National Library of Scotland and the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh, and even visiting a manuscript that’s now down in London. (Blog post Women’s History Month 2024. Musicians, this present blog.)
But ever since, these fascinating and talented ladies keep cropping up in my social media feeds. People who’ve read my writings also contact me from time to time. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I get notifications that people have consulted my stuff, too … and there’s also a CD whose notes cite me, too:-
Tullochgorum – Haydn – Scottish Songs, by The Poker Club Band and Masako Art (BIS-2471 | SACD
The harpist, Masako, asked if she could cite my work – I was very appreciative that she went to the trouble of asking me.
I spent so long with my early nineteenth-century heroines, but eventually my research took different directions. Not being a Gaelic scholar was just one of the problems I’d encountered! I attended classes in speaking it, at the Conservatoire. I signed up to local authority evening classes at the Gaelic School in Glasgow. But somehow, I never really had time to give it enough attention, despite having been considered good at languages at school and possessing school certificates in – well, several European languages. I understand when someone agrees with me in Gaelic, and can pronounce ‘Torloisk’, for sure, but Gaelic remains beyond me!
But look – now the music is going to be played. That’s exciting!
As well as my recent article in which I compare Flora Woodman’s career with Robert Wilson’s …
It’s time for a flashback to this time last year. I went all-out to share a lot of research and resources about women musicians, so this year, I think I’ll share it again! I’ve written quite a bit on the subject, as you’ll see.
I don’t often sign up to webinars, but something so closely aligned to my own current research was irresistible.
The History Scotland webinar series is promoted by the History Department at the University of Dundee. The guest speaker today was Dr Michelle Moffat of Manchester Metropolitan University.
And what did I learn? Leisure pursuits didn’t stop in wartime, especially going to the cinema. This is worth knowing. (However, I must be careful not to assume things were exactly the same everywhere. It makes me wonder about central London, for example, where people might have felt more threatened. )
There was also interesting detail about rationing and food shortages, and discussion about how much people in Scotland felt the war was ‘their’ war. (I suspect anyone who had relatives fighting overseas would very much have felt indirectly part of it.)
And a reminder about the Mass Observation Archive. I had forgotten about this, but it’s a crucial resource – I’m going to check it out with some questions that I hope it might help with!
You can tell I’ve spent too long in the late nineteenth century – in the research sense, that is. Dizzy with excitement at the thought of seeing a silent movie – yes, it might actually come to pass, albeit not for a few months – I was almost deliriously pleased to discover that one of my research interests made British Pathe ‘shorts’ during the Second World War. My aim is to contrast two singing careers, started only a decade apart – and here’s the first contrast. One began their career during the First World War and the silent movie era. The other made British Pathe shorts during the Second.
We think we’re so advanced, with our internet and our AI, electric cars and digital sound … but anyone born in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century might have been amazed by their own advances in technology. A fin-de-siecle child treated to a magic lantern show, might have sung along to hymn or Scottish song texts projected on a magic lantern screen, the singing led by whichever grown-up had been co-opted in to help. When silent film came along, any music would be provided by a cinema pianist or a small ‘orchestra’ – possibly no more than a piano trio. What you heard would partly depend on who was playing and the bundle of music they’d brought with them.
But when the children became adults, they would would find themselves listening to the wireless or going out to ‘talking’ movies. Watching, in adulthood, a short film performance by a contemporary star vocalist would have been unimaginable a decade earlier.
However, I must still cool my heels as I wait to see if (and when) the silent movie that I need to see, can be converted into a modern format. Meanwhile, I’m trapped in the nineteenth century with the printed novel that gave rise to the movie. As I read, I wonder how they managed to condense the story into a couple of hours, and then convey the whole plot by wordless gestures.
I can’t wait to see.
‘LUCERNA is an online resource on the magic lantern, an early slide projector invented in the 17th century.
‘For more than 350 years the magic lantern has represented and fed into every aspect of human life and every part of the world. It is still used today, both in its original form and through direct descendants like the modern data projector.
‘LUCERNA includes details of slide sets, slide images, readings and other texts related to slide sets, lantern hardware, people and organisations involved in lantern history, and much more.’
(Introduction to the Lucerna database)
Cover Image from Pixabay
Writing a second book has felt quite different from the first time round. The first one developed out of my PhD, so I had my supervisor supporting me as I wrote the original thesis.
But this one? All my own, unsupervised work, arising originally from the thought that someone really ought to write a book about the music published by Scottish publishers in the late Victorian era and the early twentieth century. No-one had written one, so I researched and wrote it myself. I was grateful for my peer-reviewers’ feedback on the first draft, and I know that the final product benefited from the subsequent edits that I made during my Ketelbey Fellowship at St Andrews.
This time, I did my own indexing, too. That was a new experience for me.
Now, to start planning a book launch! Watch this space – I have an idea. Provisional date Monday 11th November, but the details have yet to be finalised!
