The painting included is: An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745
Circa 1745. By David Morier.
The painting which forms part of The Royal Collection and is on display at the Palace of Holyrood House depicts fighting of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. It is unsure if the painting depicts events from the Battle of Culloden itself though it has always been used to illustrate the famed battle.
The Artist in residence will work with our First World War archive to bring to life some of the interesting stories and characters which exist in the original letters, diaries and photographs kept by Highland soldiers during the conflict.
‘The Highlanders’ Museum is delighted to announce the appointment of Robyn Woolston as Artist in Residence for the first 6 months of 2017. Thanks to a grant from Museums Galleries Scotland, we have been able to appoint our first Artist in Residence who will be working with our World War One collection to generate a creative response, engage local primary school children and interact with visitors to the Museum. The residency will be followed by an exhibition of Robyn’s work alongside pieces generated from the schools workshops.’
Gill Bird - The Highlanders’ Museum (Queen’s Own Highlanders Collection)
The Highlanders’ Museum (Queen’s Own Highlanders Collection) archive covers the The Highlanders (4 SCOTS), Seaforth Highlanders, Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, Queen’s Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Cameron’s), Lovat Scouts, Liverpool Scottish, and our overseas allied regiments from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 7th (DOE) Gurkha Rifles.
The cigarette case pictured above belonged to Private M Smith of the 5th Bn Cameron Highlanders. It was damaged by a German bullet at Loos in 1915. Private Smith was later killed at Delville Wood during the battle of the Somme in July 1916.
At the end of December 2016 I visited the Highlanders’ Museum (Queen’s Own Highlanders Collection) at Fort George, Inverness, for the first time as their inaugural Artist in Residence.
During the course of the next 6 months I will be focusing upon a section of their archive that contains original letters, diaries, eye-witness accounts and photographs originating from World War One.
My work will concentrate upon what life was like for Highland soldiers in the trenches.
I’m now at a point in my Museums Galleries Scotland funded Artist Residency at the Highlanders’ Museum (Queen’s Own Highlanders Collection) where I’m moving from research into making. It’s a stage which requires me to spend less time ‘on location’ & more time in the studio.
After collating 1408 separate files comprised of photographs from the archive, notes sent both to-and-from the front line, official documents from Buckingham Palace, official portraits, and domestic snaps etc it is a time to focus upon narratives that will saturate and direct my final exhibition.
During the last 6 months I’ve been most touched by:
- ‘traces’ left by the human hand, a note scribbled in the corner of a printed army document or the inside of a cigarette wrapper. - hand-sewn greetings cards and notes - salvaged materials used within sweetheart pin-cushions (old uniforms, sack-cloth etc) - harrowing personal accounts of life in the trenches: ‘Our wounded were streaming back, some ghastly sights; holding on arms, legs, broken and smashed’&‘All that will be left is a nation of legless, and armless, blind and helpless except those that are making money’(1917)
Alongside extracts from newspapers such as the Shipley Express and Times from 1st June 1917 describing Arras:
‘…over wires, over shell holes, past mined patches and death traps…faced a torrent of fire aimed at us’
And then there are the thoughts of historians such as E.J. Hobsbawn raising pertinent questions such as: how did ‘the era of peace, of confident bourgeois civilisation, growing wealth and western empires within itself the embryo of the era of war, revolution and crisis put an end to it?’
In parallel I’m now diving deep into materials and techniques. Exploring hand-sewn and domestic processes alongside industrial fabrication techniques. I’m locating harvested cloth (from Highland charity shops and the collection itself) and found objects.
Capt Lennox Robert Murray Napier served 2nd Camerons 1911-15
He served with the 2nd Battalion in India and on the outbreak of World War 1 he remained there in charge of married families, until rejoining the Battalion, then near Dickebusch, 17th Feb 1915. After being wounded at the battle of Frezenberg Ridge, 8th May 1915, he was posted to the 1st Battalion and commanded ‘C’ Company during the trench fighting in the Bethune sector, and at the battle of Bazentin Ridge when he was mortally wounded while leading the assault, and fell into the hands of the Germans.
Died as a Prisoner of War on the 28th July 1916 in a German Field Hospital, of wounds received in action 23rd July 1916. Originally reported missing.
The following extract was handed to me by Dave Chapman (Research and Volunteer Co-ordinator at the museum) via Richard Coomber. It vividly details the horrific nature of the Battle of Arras and the significance of the bagpipes during one particular moment of conflict:
Private Walter Teale, of 19 Fletton Terrace, Undercliffe, has been through some heavy engagements at the front with the famous Cameron Highlanders. He was wounded in the Somme battle on the 17th of last August, being injured in the fingers and shoulders.
After a spell in Nottingham Hospital he re-joined his regiment and took part in the great Arras battle and was wounded again on the Bapaume Road, on March 3rd. This time he was sent to the hospital at Clacton-on-Sea and having now recovered, he went to the front for the third time last Tuesday.
Speaking of the Arras battle he says:
“We did about an 18 mile march during the night and opened the ball in a new place at 5 a.m. For five days a torrent of shell fire had been raging at this spot and the ground was ripped and torn and furrowed with the Huns’ big guns, and the air was sulphurous almost to the point of suffocation. When the order was given for our men to go over the top, we did so with right goodwill.
After mounting the parapet we advanced steadily across the shell-swept zone, picking our way between the shell craters and eventually lined up on the slope of the enemy’s parapet before taking part in the last grim struggle. We could see the Germans taking aim at us from behind their defences and then the Highland pipers struck up the Cameron march, which sent an exultant thrill through all our men. I believe it was the music at that moment which made it possible for us to go through the terrible ordeal that followed.
Anyhow, we dashed for the Huns, over the wires, over shell holes, past mined patches and death traps, and faced a torrent of fire aimed at us. At the top of the parapet men gripped each other in deadly embrace. Dead and wounded fell, some sticking on the barbed wire and others rolling down the slope.
The Germans spared neither men nor munitions in their desperate efforts to throw us back. As far as we could see, they were lined along the front, shoulder-to-shoulder, and behind them was another line of reserves ready to be moved up to fill vacancies in the first. Further back still was another line ready to relieve the others when the strain became too great. Of course, we had no such luck as a double-line of reserves. After a desperate struggle we smashed through their first line, though they tried hard to close up the gap we had made by sending forward more men. With us it was a question of holding on or dying where we were. The Germans were furious at our success and hurled their best troops against the Highlanders but we were immoveable and victory remained with us at the end.”
Fort George is a large 18th-century fortress to the north-east of Inverness. The current fortress has never been attacked and has remained in continuous use as a garrison.
The fortification is based on a star design that remains virtually unaltered.
The Highlanders’ Museum (Queen’s Own Highlanders Collection) covers three floors of Fort George’s former Lieutenant Governors’ House.
‘He whom this scroll commemorates was numbered among those who at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger, and finally passed out of sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten.
The upcoming exhibition of works from my residency at The Highlanders’ Museum (Queen’s Own Highlanders Collection) at Fort George, Scotland, has been extended into 2018.
It will now run from October 2017 - March 2018
Watch this space for further updates or follow the project blog for research posts as the story develops:
Photo credit: My research photographs show a newspaper from the archive at Fort George. ‘Prisoners of War’ by Jean Pierre Laurens is a testimony on the German occupation during the 1st World War.
It can be found within the Seaforths documentation (No’s 80 - 133 + 84 - 101)
A kilt-clad highlander takes snuff as a Native American sits on a hogshead of tobacco, pushlished in Tobacco: Its History and Associations by F.W. Fairholt (1814-1866).
