After almost 85 years, the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, which serves the city of Stirling and county of Stirlingshire, has an updated catalogue. It takes the place of the 1934 Smith catalogue.
The publication is an important landmark. The Stirling Smith is the only museum and gallery in Scotland founded (1874) through the bequest of a Scottish artist. Thomas Stuart Smith (1814-69) left his estate to establish a gallery, museum and library for the benefit of the public. It has been run as a private trust for most of its 144 years and, now reliant on community support, its survival has been brought into question many times.
Throughout each world war, the museum was requisitioned for military purposes. In the hard times of the 1960s, an application to the local authority for help brought the response that the collections could be dispersed as teaching aids around local schools and the building demolished. Despite the 1934 catalogue, with its 200 pages and detailed collection lists, the Stirling Smith was considered irrelevant.
Even after the creation of a rescue package with local authority investment, a further development in 1984 proposed that the museum be cleared to provide a terminus and parking space for a funicular railway taking tourists to Stirling Castle.
In the decades since, museum staff have put every effort into making the Stirling Smith socially relevant through outreach and learning programmes. Publicising and making the collections available through print and online has been a priority for the past 25 years. The Adlib cataloguing system is used and at least one publication a year on an aspect of the collection has been produced. In an attempt to foster a sense of public ownership of the collections, staff have contributed a weekly feature to the Stirling Observer newspaper since 2004. In 2011, a selection was published by the History Press as A History of Stirling in 100 Objects.
In February 2018, one of the cost-saving proposals of the council was to close the Stirling Smith completely by 2020. Within two months, an online petition had gathered 11,000 signatures and the Stirling MP Stephen Kerr led a debate in Westminster Hall on the value of local museums. The necessity of an advocacy document was pressing, and the amorphous catalogue publication proposals of many years took shape.
A wide range of topics are explored through museum objects, including Stirling’s strategic place in securing national independence in 1297 and 1314, its contribution to renaissance and reformation politics and later social history themes such as sport, women’s history and black history. The museum collections are tied to the past and future of Stirling in this catalogue, with the aim of securing a future for the museum itself.
It is our hope that when the Stirling Smith faces its next threat, no one will be able to dismiss the collections as inappropriate, irrelevant or valueless, as has been done in the past, thanks to this publication.
The publication is an important landmark. The Stirling Smith is the only museum and gallery in Scotland founded (1874) through the bequest of a Scottish artist. Thomas Stuart Smith (1814-69) left his estate to establish a gallery, museum and library for the benefit of the public. It has been run as a private trust for most of its 144 years and, now reliant on community support, its survival has been brought into question many times.
Throughout each world war, the museum was requisitioned for military purposes. In the hard times of the 1960s, an application to the local authority for help brought the response that the collections could be dispersed as teaching aids around local schools and the building demolished. Despite the 1934 catalogue, with its 200 pages and detailed collection lists, the Stirling Smith was considered irrelevant.
Even after the creation of a rescue package with local authority investment, a further development in 1984 proposed that the museum be cleared to provide a terminus and parking space for a funicular railway taking tourists to Stirling Castle.
In the decades since, museum staff have put every effort into making the Stirling Smith socially relevant through outreach and learning programmes. Publicising and making the collections available through print and online has been a priority for the past 25 years. The Adlib cataloguing system is used and at least one publication a year on an aspect of the collection has been produced. In an attempt to foster a sense of public ownership of the collections, staff have contributed a weekly feature to the Stirling Observer newspaper since 2004. In 2011, a selection was published by the History Press as A History of Stirling in 100 Objects.
In February 2018, one of the cost-saving proposals of the council was to close the Stirling Smith completely by 2020. Within two months, an online petition had gathered 11,000 signatures and the Stirling MP Stephen Kerr led a debate in Westminster Hall on the value of local museums. The necessity of an advocacy document was pressing, and the amorphous catalogue publication proposals of many years took shape.
A wide range of topics are explored through museum objects, including Stirling’s strategic place in securing national independence in 1297 and 1314, its contribution to renaissance and reformation politics and later social history themes such as sport, women’s history and black history. The museum collections are tied to the past and future of Stirling in this catalogue, with the aim of securing a future for the museum itself.
It is our hope that when the Stirling Smith faces its next threat, no one will be able to dismiss the collections as inappropriate, irrelevant or valueless, as has been done in the past, thanks to this publication.
Elspeth King is the director of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Stirling
