Stewartry Museum News - March 2010
11th June 2010
‘The Glasgow Girls’ are on their way to Kirkcudbright Town Hall for this year’s Kirkcudbright 2000 summer art exhibition spectacular. With just over 3 months to go to the opening on July 3rd, the content of the exhibition is nearing completion and will include oil and watercolour painting, textile design, metal work, jewellery and painted ceramics, as well as archives and photographs which tell the story of this remarkably creative generation of women artists and craft workers, many of whom were trained and inspired by the Glasgow School of Art. Through individuals like Jessie M King, there are strong connections in this story with Kirkcudbright and Dumfries and Galloway generally. One previously overlooked ‘Glasgow Girl’ was the Dumfries-based artist Christian J Fergusson (nee Stark). Born in Dumfries in 1876, she studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1900 and went on to teach there until 1907. The adjacent photograph dating to around 1905 shows her (centre, in the background) in a life class in one of the Glasgow School of Art studios.
The other early interior photograph reproduced here also dates to around 1905 and shows the tailors’ work room of the clothiers and drapers Jardine and Palmer, who had two adjacent shops in Gatehouse High Street. Research by Dr David Steel tells us that the main shop was purchased by Jardine & Palmer in 1881, and the second with this work room behind it, was purchased in 1895. The business continued until 1913 when James Palmer sold it to Robert Jardine, who carried it on. Interior photographs of this type are rare but do seem to convey the poorly lit and cramped working conditions which were the norm then. Like most towns and larger villages in Scotland at this time, Gatehouse was largely self-sufficient with shops and tradesmen providing most of the supplies and services required for everyday living. A copy of a 1905 Trades Directory held in the Stewartry Museum, Kirkcudbright, tells us that there were in all four drapers and clothiers shops in the town, as well as one ladies’ milliner and dressmaker, one tailor and two boot and shoe makers.
Carsphairn was a less-populous community but in the same year, it also had one draper and milliner, one tailor and clothier, and two boot and shoe makers, as well as a blacksmith, two grocers a joiner and spirit dealer. The adjacent photograph shows the Post Office in the village, also photographed about 1905. Archive photographs of this type form the subject of this year’s exhibition at the Carsphairn Heritage Centre. For a village of its size, the Heritage Centre holds a remarkable quantity and interesting variety of archive photographs, many of which will feature in the exhibition. In total the collection provides a valuable insight into life in the Glenkens over a century ago. The Heritage Centre is on the main road at the north end of the village, and will be open from Good Friday, April 2 to Easter Monday and thereafter weekends only until May 30 (Saturday 10.30am to 5.00pm, Sunday 2.00-5.00pm) and then opens daily (except Wednesday) from May 31.