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.
And I’ve started. I’m inching towards the part of the project where I start interviewing people, to see what they remember about this long-running Dundee schools singing competition. I’ve created a Microsoft mini-questionnaire so that people can contact me, and a poster for displaying or sharing. I’ve shared news of my oral history research project via Facebook, Bluesky and Linked in. And folk are getting in touch! I am really excited to say that in less than a week, I’ve already been contacted by quite a lot of people. Best of all, they’re already sharing memories of the Leng Scots Song competition that are exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to hear about – which goes to show that I’ve plainly come up with a really good topic to investigate (if I might be so bold as to say!)
‘You’ll be home for lunch’, He said. It was halfway between a query and a command. ‘You have four hours …’ (Actually, that came down to three, once I got to the library. Two, allowing for a coffee and my return journey … )
The Authoress
Nonetheless, I held in my hands the two very poetry books that the author (‘authoress’, in those days) had donated to the city library service back in 1881, not that long after they moved from Lanark to Glasgow. I’ll never know if she handed them in personally, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that she handled those copies at some point.
I can’t show you them. (I signed a library form, which said that I couldn’t share my photos on the internet.) But you can picture two small volumes, one dark green and one purple, a little over six inches tall, with gold-edged leaves, and a little gold-embossed lyre on the front cover of each. Slightly different in design, but very similar.
A bit like this unrelated, non-library book
These books are by the mother of one of the women I wrote about in my recent RMA Research Chronicle article.* Only one has been digitized, but I wanted to see them both. I was enchanted to find she had written a poem about ‘my’ heroine, Rose, when Rose was just a small child. It was worth the trip for that in itself. Not that it really added any hard facts to her biography, but still a lovely thing to find.
Anyway, there we were. Me, Mary Ann’s books, and a poem about wee Rose (amongst lots more poetry – I’m not writing here about everything I found!) – so yes, I think I can safely say I came as close as is possible to ‘meeting’ Mary Ann today. But as I said, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
I handed the books back – it was a bit of a wrench, but hey, that’s what happens in a library – and the curtains of time softly closed behind me, leaving Mary Ann in 1881, and myself here in 2026. I may be back – she and I could have more to talk about!
But I hope that whilst I’m there, I’ll also be able to chat to friends about my new research project – Silver and Gold Leng Medal Memories. You may recall that I blogged about the project a couple of days ago.
My research is made possible with the support of an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Already, several people have been in touch, and I’ll be responding next week. I can’t wait to hear everyone’s stories, and it’s clear there are hundreds of people out there who participated in this competition!
Would you like to help me? If so, I’d be very grateful if you could fill in a very short questionnaire, and I’ll get back in touch as soon as I can to arrange an interview with anyone who has a story to tell!
Do you have schooldays memories of taking part in the Dundee-based Leng Medal Scots song singing competitions? Perhaps you were a proud prize-winner of a Silver or Gold Leng Medal?
Maybe you didn’t actually win, but the memories are still vivid? You might remember the song you chose, or which song book you sang from? Or you helped someone else polish up their performance?
Maybe you’ve never stopped singing Scottish songs?
Sir John Leng: Dundee benefactor
I’m on the staff of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as a postdoctoral research fellow, researching Scottish music. Whilst investigating an old Scottish song book aimed at school pupils in the post-war era, I became fascinated by the initiative of Sir John Leng (1828-1906), who endowed the singing prize 125 years ago. He died 120 years ago, but his singing competition is still live and kicking all these years later. Encouraging kids to sing Scottish songs was obviously a good thing!
Would you like to help me? If so, I’d be very grateful if you could fill in a very short questionnaire, and I’ll get back in touch as soon as I can to arrange an interview with anyone who has a story to tell!
I decided to find out more, and I’m embarking on a project to talk to as many Leng medallists, entrants, teachers or adjudicators as possible. The Sir John Leng Trust endorses this research, and is looking forward to hearing what I uncover.
My research is made possible with the support of an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
A Woman with Opinions, and a Man who Resigned more than Once
Whilst waiting to get started with my next project, I’ve been doing a bit more research into individuals who only had a marginal role in my previous projects, but looked interesting in their own right, too.
But if I have one quality which is sometimes a failing, it’s my refusal to accept that sometimes the information is simply not there to be found. My librarianship background is somewhat to blame. If I can’t find something, it feels tantamount to an admission of defeat. And I don’t like being beaten.
Like Believing in Fairies
I’ve been on a wild goose chase this afternoon, though. I knew the poetry collections I was seeking were rare. It was totally improbable that I would walk into a couple of secondhand bookshops and find either of them. Yes, they were published in Scotland – 150 years ago. The poet (‘poetess’ or ‘authoress’ in her own day) comes across as an interesting woman with informed opinions about women’s status, and since she was the mother of one of ‘my’ woman composers, I thought she merited more attention. However, there was no trace of her this afternoon. Luckily, I have tracked down library copies, so all is not lost. I will get to see them – I just won’t have my own copies!
Even the consolatory coffee was a bit of a damp squib. I had the choice of standing and waiting in a haphazard queue, or going elsewhere to squeeze into a seat between people who really needed the space my seat was occupying. Oh, well. I had an outing. And I managed not to spill my coffee when I got bumped by the customers on either side!
However, I’ve had more luck at home, with my other quest.
‘Beyond a few slender facts [ … ], virtually no information about him seems to have survived.’
So said the authors of a book celebrating the 150th anniversary of our institution, a few years ago.
Of course, we have more information at our fingertips these days, so I’ve been trying to build up more of a profile of the Athenaeum Principal who only stayed in post for two years. I now know a lot more about him – though not yet the reason for his resignation. He was well qualified, a good pianist, and was the organist for several churches in England, Scotland and overseas.
Resigned as Principal, Resigned as Organist …
His resignation from the Athenaeum wasn’t the only time he resigned from a post. Indeed, one church went into a little more detail, saying he lacked tact. Their choir had already reportedly a hard time with his predecessor, though – maybe the choir itself was tricky!
I haven’t ruled out discovering more. But I am rather gratified by what I have found so far!
I received an invitation in connection with my next research project. It was irresistible in research terms – and I needed no excuse to be out of Testosterone Towers and away from the redecorating project.
Early rising
I found the east coast much windier and wetter city than the west. (Windproof brolly, my foot! I rocked the fashionable drowned rat look instead.) It was darkish when I arrived around 9.38, and is darkish now at 12.20.
I’m still entangled in ethical approval procedures, so this was an observational experience rather than ‘data gathering’. Worthwhile, nonetheless, and a reminder to myself that what I’m researching involves, and involved, real people in real time.
Yes, I did stop off in my favourite coffee shop on my way back to the station. (Wouldn’t you?)
And now I need to type up some ‘first impressions’, in the most general sense.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. Outwardly, it smacks uncomfortably of, ‘Look at all my Achievements!!!’ Inwardly, I ask myself if I’ve done enough. Could I have tried harder? (I was brought up with, ‘So long as you know you’ve done your best’, but the unspoken suggestion was often that maybe I could and should have tried harder still!)
Sunshine
In a year of highs and lows, this really has been a rollercoaster. I joyously welcomed the publication of my second Routledge monograph. I was also delighted to accept a visiting Fellowship at IASH (the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, at the University of Edinburgh), where I explored the Thomas Nelson archives – with more ideas arising out of this.
A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 (Routledge, 2025)
I saw three articles published, gave a paper at a conference in Surrey, and have another two articles and a contributed book chapter in the pipeline.
Article, ‘Heart-Moving Stories’ illustrated by Magic Lantern’, The Magic Lantern no.45, December 2025, pp. 11-12 (ISSN 2057-3723)
‘Sir John Macgregor Murray: Preserver of Highland Culture, Music and Song’. Folk Music Journal vol. 13 (2025) no.1, pp.50-63.
‘The ‘Scottish Soprano’ and the ‘Voice of Scotland’: the Importance of Nationality to Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, History Scotland Vol.25 no.1 (Spring 2025), 74-81 (accessible online via public library e-magazine apps, or you may be able to order a paper copy online.)
Conference paper, ‘Comparing the Career Trajectories of Two Scottish Singers: Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, at the University of Surrey: Actors, Singers and Celebrity Cultures across the Centuries, Thursday 12 to Saturday 14 June 2025, organised under the aegis of the University’s Theatrical Voice Research Centre.
I also finished supervising and assessing some Honours students’ research projects – an enjoyable new experience. Having been an ‘Alt-Ac’ since gaining my doctorate in 2009, I had acquired a PGCert and FHEA, but teaching opportunities outside libraryland were infrequent. Being semi-retired certainly opens up new possibilities, and I’m happy to consider other opportunities.
And I have been awarded an Athenaeum Award from my home institution, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, for an oral history project in Dundee. That will begin as soon as the ethical approval process has been completed.
Clouds
However, as well as the professional highs, were the personal lows. In the middle of the year, we lost my mum at the age of 94, and this was far from the only upheaval on the family front. It has not been an easy year.
It would be inaccurate to say that I’m glad to see the back of 2025, because there has been much to celebrate. But, whilst I do hope that 2026 might be less of a bumpy ride, I realise that some things are beyond my control. ‘Trying hard enough’ isn’t always sufficient guarantee, and some things will be difficult no matter what I do. Shall we say that I hope the good outweighs the less good?!
My next research project requires ethical approval – interviewing real live people rather than writing about people long since departed. And it’s imperative that I get my submission in on time, since the next meeting of our ethics committee is early next year.
I’ve been working on it for weeks. (Admittedly, I’m a part-time research fellow, so I technically have only 10.5 hours a week to get my research activities done. Yes, we all know that the reality is different!) Anyway, yesterday was my own deadline: it just happened to be the last day we’re open before Christmas, and the morning after my last working day this year.
Efficiency (and Thoroughness)
There’s only one way to fill in a form efficiently, and that’s to make sure every question is answered satisfactorily. To this end, I go through and make myself a list of the information I must provide. Over the past few weeks, I assembled the info. Attachments were created and labelled. And here’s where Tuesday (not a ‘work’ day) and Thursday came unstuck. I wanted to have a particular collection of old newspaper excerpts to share as an interview prompt. Finding and listing them was easy enough. Formatting the document in Word, though? With clips of the excerpts? It took hours!
Have I Forgotten Anything?
Finally satisfied, I turned back to the form. And there – I swear they weren’t there when I initially saved it! – were a couple more questions with grey-shaded boxes requiring answers. And attachments. What a good thing I double-checked. ✔️
It’s done. Phew! Details of whom I hope to interview, what I’ll be asking, and how I’ll save and use the gathered information, are all itemised.
And … breathe!
I submitted it. Ensured everyone involved could access it. At last, I can stop thinking about it until after Christmas!
Now, where’s the domestic to-do list (all the stuff I need to do, because no-one else will think about it) …?
‘All good things must come to an end’, as the saying goes. And an IASH Postdoctoral Research Fellowship is a thoroughly good thing. I handed back my keys with sadness today, but I have had a great year. (The Fellowship was technically six months, but I was graciously permitted to hang around, retaining the use of my office for the rest of the year, which was wonderful, and enabled me to continue data-gathering in the Library’s Heritage Collections.)
19th meets 20th century Looking back …Last glance from bus stop St Patrick’s Square
If you are looking for a next step after your PhD, or if like me, you’re making a change of direction – or need a spell concentrating on a particular research question in the Humanities – do consider applying.
I devoted my time to examining the archives of the Edinburgh publishers, Thomas Nelson. I initially entitled my project, ‘From National Songs to Nursery Rhymes, and Discussion Books to Dance Bands: investigating Thomas Nelson’s Musical Middle Ground’, but the nursery rhymes turned out to be poems, and weren’t what I had in mind! The rest? Yes, I researched them.
I found quite a bit of correspondence between Thomas Nelson’s editors, authors and compilers, which was gratifying. I was able to trace material in journals that I would not have had access to, had I not been in Edinburgh; there’s the excellent University Library collection of actual and digital resources, and the National Library of Scotland just down the road.
I have deferred commencing any significant written work until I had explored all the potentially relevant materials in the files. I believe I’ve now reached that point. As a result of conducting this research, I have ideas for extending my research in new directions, and I’m contemplating writing another book, so I need not only to explore potential audiences, but also to start working on a book proposal
However, I have also applied for and recently won an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to enable me to conduct an oral history project. This work, to be conducted in 2026, will hopefully enable me to write a final chapter for my proposed monograph. (I’ll be blogging about this before too long, but there are things I need to do first, before I spill the beans!)
I have benefited from being part of a research community, hearing other scholars’ papers and discussing our research; and attending researcher development sessions. I was able to focus on my new direction as a researcher – important, after so many years as an ‘alt-ac’ researcher working in professional services. In this regard, I have also been in a position to submit some other unrelated work for publication, and I spoke at a conference at the University of Surrey in June, all of which gives me a sense that my research is gathering momentum.
Today, my last day, I took a cake to the University Library’s Heritage Collections; went to IASH’s Christmas lunch; and mulled over aspects of my ethical approval submission for my next project. (Oh, and drank quite a bit of coffee!)
Thank you so very much for a great year, IASH!
IASH (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities)
I’ve proof-read an article for The Magic Lantern; navigated Cambridge University Press’s article dashboard for my impending RMA Research Chronicle article; signed an ‘Ironclad’ contract; updated my Pure (institutional repository) account; signed up to a short online course in connection with next year’s research project; and attended a meeting.
It feels as though it’s been a busy morning. One could argue that it has been more administrative than actual research work, but research doesn’t get done without a secure administrative foundation, so that’s good enough for me.
Post-Rewiring?
I’d best describe my mental state as ‘fragile, but functional’! But I’m getting there.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 