Newsletters
The Friends of the Argyll Papers newsletters are issued twice a year – at Whitsun and Martinmas. They are compiled and edited by Duncan Beaton. If you would like to submit an article for the newsletter, please email it to Duncan.
Please note that images used in articles should be properly attributed and copyright cleared for publication and sharing online.
Newsletters are a benefit of membership and we invite you to join the Friends via this LINK and receive our newsletter regularly. New members are welcome to contact Alison at archives@inveraray-castle.com to receive the back catalogue. The main articles in each issue of the newsletter are listed below.
Newsletters:
17th Issue Martinmas 2024
Note from the Editor – Duncan Beaton
The New Website for the Friends – Robin Campbell gives us an update on our new website, due to be launched in early 2025. As you read this newsletter, we can confirm that the new web site, designed and developed by Rhoda Meek and her team at Isle Develop CIC based on the Isle of Tiree, is nearing the final
stages of completion. The website is designed for PCs, Laptops and smart phones.The new web site offers our Friends, and a global audience, a comprehensive range of information about the Argyll Estates Archive, home to a wealth of information, offering access to a unique platform for academic research. The new website provides a page of useful research links notably to the ‘Argyll Estates Archives online catalogue’, powered by Access to Memory (AtoM) opensource software. This resource will eventually become the main finding aid for the archives – available to all, for free.The new pages provide fresh insight into the Archives, how to visit the archives, updated research guidance, volunteering, sponsoring the work of the archives, invitations to social and members events throughout the year, and most importantly how to keep you our ‘Friends’ informed.
16th Issue Whitsun 2024
Note from the Editor – Duncan Beaton
Book launch: Ronnie Black tells us about the imminent appearance of the Volume One of his latest project. There are seven volumes labelled ‘Dewar Manuscripts’ in the archives at Inveraray. John Dewar (1802–72) was a Gaelic speaker from Arrochar who spent the years 1862–72 wandering
around Argyll, Arran, west Dunbartonshire, west Perthshire, and Lochaber, gathering ‘the people’s history of the West Highlands, in their own language’ for the duke of Argyll. In all he left ten volumes of stories, the remaining three are in the John Francis Campbell of Islay Collection in the National Library of Scotland. The work of transcribing the 4,338 pages from the original Gaelic has taken six years, from 2017, and was done by a worldwide team of volunteers.
15th Issue Martinmas 2023
Note from the Editor – Duncan Beaton
Dates for your Diary: Online seminars
The Friends of the Argyll Papers are again delighted to introduce a series of online seminars informed by research undertaken in the archive, to take place on Zoom. All seminars are scheduled for a Friday, at various start times to allow Friends around the world to participate. Unfortunately, Murdo MacDonald’s Further Discoveries in the Argyll Synod Papers in October, and his joint talk Crabbit Age and Youth: An Archivist’s Training Then and Now with Donald MacDougall will already have taken place in October and early November respectively, but they were well advertised, and as usual recordings are available.
14th Issue Whitsun 2023
Note from the Editor – Duncan Beaton
Another spring and already it has been great to see visitors returning to our country, especially to Argyll, Inveraray Castle, and our archives at Cherry
Park. The Zoom seminar series has continued to be a big success over the winter and spring, and we have commenced our visit programme for those members and their friends lucky enough to live in within commuting distance of our bonnie country.
In this issue regular contributors and Cherry Park volunteers Bob Reid and Ann Galliard have used current research projects to provide articles, and as promised in the last issue we feature committee member Robin Campbell in our Pen Picture section. Robin has been heavily involved with the successful Inveraray Pier Restoration Project and will include a brief update on how that is proceeding.
We seem to repeat ourselves, but we always say, read on, enjoy, and please let us hear your thoughts. Feedback is much appreciated and although verbal feedback has always been positive it would be grand to get some written comments to include in our future newsletters.
We seem to repeat ourselves, but we always say, read on, enjoy, and please let us hear your thoughts. Feedback is much appreciated and although verbal feedback has always been positive it would be grand to get some written comments to include in our future newsletters.
Issue 13 Martinmas 2022
Murdo MacDonald ‘A Note on the windows in St Gile’s Kirk, Edinburgh’
Robert Reid ‘The earls of Argyll and their links with the Netherlands, 1560-1705’
Donald MacDougall ‘SACHA Mount Stuart visit’
Pen picture: Donald MacDougall
Issue 12 Whitsun 2022
Duncan Beaton ‘Detective work on the Rev Dr Colin Smith – photographed by Scipio Mactaggart’
Dena Palamedes ‘The Inveraray Archives: Research and Serendipity’
Pen picture: Dena Palamedes
Issue 11 Martinmas 2021
Lady Mary Davidson ‘An early photographer in Argyll, Scipio Mactaggart’
Robert Reid ‘The last voyage of Archibald Campbell, 9th earl of Argyll’ part 2
Linda Fryer ‘Droving from Kintyre’
Pen picture: Ronald Black
Issue 10 Whitsun 2021
Robert Reid ‘The last voyage of Archibald Campbell, 9th earl of Argyll’ part 1
Duncan Beaton ‘The Roman Catholic second family of the 7th earl of Argyll’
Murdo MacDonald ‘Railway mania in the Argyll Papers’
Pen picture: Catriona Smyth
Issue 9 Martinmas 2020
Ann Galliard ‘Road for a Duke?’
Murdo MacDonald ‘The Synod of Argyll Papers’
Robert Reid ‘Tales from Argyll in the summer of 1701’
Pen picture: Duncan Beaton
Issue 8 Whitsun 2020
‘What we all did during lockdown’
Ann Galliard ‘The Mystery of the Yellow Wig’
Issue 7 Martinmas 2019
Robert Reid ‘Anent the creation of notaris’
Pen picture: Ann Galliard
Issue 6 Whitsun 2019
‘Ackergill Castle in Caithness’
Alison Diamond ‘Conserving the 18th century court books’
Pen picture: Alison Rosie
Issue 5 Martinmas 2018
Hannah Baker ’18th century Inveraray Re-imagined’
Ann Galliard ‘The Duke and the Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines.
Pen picture: Jean Maskell
Issue 4 Whitsun 2018
Ronald Black ‘The Dewar Manuscripts’
Gordon C Richardson ‘Kenneth Cameron’s ancestry discovered at Cherry Park’
Pen picture: Linda Fryer
Issue 3 Martinmas 2017
Ann Galliard ‘God Bless the Duke of Argyll’
Pen picture: Alison Diamond
Issue 2 Whitsun 2017
Duncan Beaton ‘Archaeology and Ardkinglas’
Alison Diamond ‘the Anne Campbell Collection’
Pen picture: Diarmid A Campbell
Issue 1 Martinmas 2016
Ann Galliard ‘The Travails of the Argyll Papers in the troubled 17th century’
Pen picture: Murdo MacDonald