National Records of Scotland (NRS) is taking part in Doors Open Days (DOD) again this year, on Saturday 27th September. The aim of DOD is to give everyone the opportunity to explore some of the most architecturally and culturally significant buildings in Scotland, places which are not usually open to the public or which usually charge an entry … Continue reading Doors Open Days 2025 at General Register House
The Perth Prison Criminal Lunatic Department
Topics, Words and Language featured Perth Prison Criminal Lunatic Department Prisoners or Patients? Criminal Insanity in Victorian Scotland Prisoner-patient: Marjory McKercher or McGregor Diagnosis A Guardian Resources used/further reading Mental Health Support Records from the Perth Prison Criminal Lunatic Department (CLD) Case Books (HH21/48), covering admissions from 1846 -1902 have been added to Scotland’s People … Continue reading The Perth Prison Criminal Lunatic Department
Preserving Scotland’s National Treasures: The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320
Some of the most treasured records in National Records of Scotland collections are centuries old. They require meticulous care to ensure they’re preserved for future generations, and never more so than when they are publicly displayed. The Declaration of Arbroath is over seven centuries old. Conservator Hazel de Vere tells us about the challenges of … Continue reading Preserving Scotland’s National Treasures: The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320
Doors Open Days 2024
This year, National Records of Scotland (NRS) marks the 250th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of General Register House (GRH); the first purpose-built public records repository in the British Isles. It’s fitting that in this celebratory year, we will take part in our first in-person Edinburgh and East Lothian Doors Open Days … Continue reading Doors Open Days 2024
Doors Open Days: The Court Doodler
As part of the first ever digital Doors Open Days, archivist Dr Alison Rosie looks at ink sketches of national symbols found in an Exchequer record from the 1530s and explains their significance... Household Book of James V: E31/6 The accounts of King James V’s pantry, kitchen, buttery and cellars for the years 1525-1539 survive … Continue reading Doors Open Days: The Court Doodler
Doors Open Days
2020 marks the 30th anniversary of Doors Open Days, Scotland’s largest free festival and celebration of architecture, culture and heritage. NRS archivist Tessa Spencer explains the background to this festival in Scotland and our involvement, as well as a brief history of our oldest buildings and highlights taking part in the first ever digital DOD. … Continue reading Doors Open Days
Prisoners or Patients? The Story of Margaret Hunter or Beaton
Prisons have a much higher proportion of men and women with mental disorders than the general population. This was also true in Victorian times, when ‘the liability of the criminal classes to an excess of insanity is very great, and much beyond that of the free population of the country’. At this time, The Prisons … Continue reading Prisoners or Patients? The Story of Margaret Hunter or Beaton
‘Prisoners or Patients?’ – Exhibition now online!
In 2019 National Records of Scotland (NRS) partnered with Professor Rab Houston of the University of St Andrews, to explore the records of those people committed to the Criminal Lunatic Department in Perth, and produced the Fringe Festival exhibition ‘Prisoners or Patients? Criminal Insanity in Victorian Scotland’. This exhibition focused on the records amassed in … Continue reading ‘Prisoners or Patients?’ – Exhibition now online!
Fringe Festival Exhibition – ‘Prisoners or Patients? Criminal Insanity in Victorian Scotland’
‘Prisoners or Patients?’ is the latest part of a major project I began in 2016, to use the lessons of history to stimulate awareness of mental health issues in the modern world. Using free podcasts, social media, and photo exhibitions of asylum and prison patients I tried to reach out to sufferers and those close … Continue reading Fringe Festival Exhibition – ‘Prisoners or Patients? Criminal Insanity in Victorian Scotland’
A Very Arduous Period – The Register Houses During WWI, with Dr Tristram Clarke
In the last of our three World War One podcasts, NRS Head of Outreach Dr Tristram Clarke looks at the forgotten stories of the men who exchanged their pens and desks in Edinburgh's Register Houses for rifles and helmets in France, Flanders and the Dardanelles, some never to return. He also explores the contribution of those who … Continue reading A Very Arduous Period – The Register Houses During WWI, with Dr Tristram Clarke
Open Book 