Robert Tannahill and Alexander Wilson

Our next meeting will be held in the lecture hall at Paisley Museum on Thursday 23rd November. Please note this is an afternoon meeting at 2 pm. Visitors are welcome - cost £3.00

The speaker is Claire Casey who will be looking at the history of both Tannahill and Wilson and there influence.

Claire can be found on Twitter as @CCaseyWriter as well as Facebook.

This will be the last meeting before the winter break.

Paisley Museum Re-Imagined

Our next talk on the above subject is on Thursday 9 November at 7.30 in Paisley Museum.

This should be of interest to anyone wishing to know what the proposed re-design of the museum will look like.

Our speaker is Kirsty Devine and she has supplied the following information

Kirsty Devine is Project Director for Paisley Museum Re-Imagined and leads the team to redevelop the Museum over the next five years. She has over 20 years’ experience of working in the heritage and cultural sectors in Scotland, the UK and internationally. She has worked on 10 capital projects ranging in value from £5m to £270m. Her experience predominantly relates to museum projects such as The Riverside Museum, The Burrell Collection, The Royal Alberta Museum, Canada and The D-Day Museum, Portsmouth but also includes historic buildings such as The Citizens Theatre and Durham Cathedral. As the Riverside Museum Project Senior Curator she worked on the project from inception to opening and was responsible for the delivery of all research, content and interpretative elements. Riverside won the European Museum of the Year 2012 and received £21.6m, which was the largest ever HLF grant awarded in Scotland. She has also worked with museums in North America and China and in 2013 curated the exhibition A Tale of Two Cities, in partnership between Historic Environment Scotland and Nanjing Museum, China. This was the first co-curated temporary exhibition in China and it subsequently won the Arts & Business International Award 2014.

Non-members are welcome with the cost being £3.00.

Next meeting 26 October 2017

Our next speaker will be Tiffany Boyle of Mother Tongue Curating and her subject will be:

Scottish Landscapes in the Work of African-American Painter Robert S. Duncanson (1821-72), and his Photographic Portrait By William Notman.

More details will follow.

The meeting will be held in Paisley Museum at 7.30 pm.

Visitors are welcome to attend and the entrance fee is £3.00. If you wish to join the Institution, then this will be deducted from your membership fee.

Tiffany can be found on Twitter: @MTcurating, Instagram: MTCurating, Facebook: MotherTongueCurating  and at www.mothertonguecurating.com.

Memories of Paisley Industries

Our next talk on 12 October will be by Prof. John Hume on the above subject.

Dr Hume started his career in 1964 as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Economic and Industrial History in the University of Strathclyde. His main topics were the history of science and technology, and industrial history. He particularly studied industrial archaeology (the buildings and machinery of past industry). From 1984-1999 he worked with what is now Historic Environment Scotland. involved in the protection and preservation of a wide range of buildings, sites and structures. More recently he has been involved with the Paisley centre for Business and Industrial History in the University of West of Scotland.In the mid 1960s Prof. Hume started photographing teh industrial buildings of Paisley.

About his talk Prof. Hume says:

'My talk will be based on my personal experience, both of active Paisley industries, from the 1960s, and of the remains of past industries still surviving during that period. It will look at Paisley’s important engineering firms and at some of the many smaller-scale industries, not so well known that were parts of the fabric of this wonderful town, as well as its justly famous textile industries. It will be largely illustrated by my own photographs.'

The talk will be held in the Paisley Museum, Lecture Theatre at 7.30 pm. visitors are welcome and are asked to make a donation of £3.00.

The Myth of The Universal Library?

Our first meeting of the new session will be on 28th September 2017 in the lecture room of the Paisley Museum at 7.30. The speaker will be Dr John Scally on the above subject.

The event is free to members and £3.00 to non-members.

Dr Scally has provide the following information. He is on twitter as @scallyjj

John Scally is National Librarian and Chief Executive of the National Library of Scotland. The National Library is Scotland’s legal deposit library giving it the right to claim a copy of everything published in the United Kingdom. The Library holds over 26 million physical items and has an even greater digital library of electronic formats. It is one of the world’s leading centres for the study of Scotland and the Scots. The National Library recently opened a new library centre in Glasgow at the Kelvin Hall, offering a range of resources to the West of Scotland community.

Dr Scally grew up in Paisley and was educated at St Mirin’s Academy, the University of Strathclyde, the University of Cambridge and the University of Wales. He has a number of research interests including aspects of 17^th and 18^th Century British history, the history of the book and book illustration. He has published on a range of topics such as the Scottish parliament before 1707, the British Civil Wars of the 1640s, popular print in Scotland and a book on Robert Louis Stevenson. He has taught and guest lectured on many subjects in a number of institutions most recently on the impact of technology on libraries.

Synopsis

The Myth of the Universal Library?

Throughout history there have been attempts to assemble the complete range of human knowledge in one place. Often the aspiration has been triggered by an advanced society or a technological breakthrough that appeared to bring the possibility closer than before. The Library of Alexandria, the Renaissance and the Internet have framed some of the attempts that will be surveyed during the course of the talk. Will the universal library remain a worthy aspiration for society in the internet age or merely a figment of our collective imagination?

Doors open day

We will be at Paisley Museum on Saturday 2 September (11-5) and Sunday 3 September (2-5), to give more information. We look forward to meeting you.

Speakers for 2017/18

The speakers page has now been updated for 2017/18. Details  are here

Preparations continue for the new session and we will also be at the Museum on Doors Open day in September, more details will follow.

Genealogy of the Stewarts

The next meeting of the Institution will take place on Thursday 9 March 2017 at 7.30 in the lecture theatre of Paisley Museum. The speaker will be Graham Holton on the Genealogy of the Stewarts. He will be using documentary and genetic evidence.

Please note that the AGM will precede this meeting at 7.15.

Glasgow's First World War

Our next meeting will be held on 23 February at 7.30 pm, in the lecture hall of Paisley Museum. The talk will be delivered by Dr Irene O'Brien, Senior Archivist of the Glasgow City Archives.

Visitors are welcome with entry costing £3.00.

Edited 21/2 Some biographicla information from Dr O'Brien.

Dr Irene O'Brien is the City Archivist and Records Manager for Glasgow City Council.  Irene has worked for Glasgow City Council (previously Strathclyde Regional Council ) for more than 30 years.  She is currently the Chair of the Scottish Council on Archives, the strategic body for archives and records in Scotland.  Irene speaks to large number of family and local history groups, as well as University students about the wonders of archives.

Great Tapestry of Scotland and Other Tapestries.

Our next meeting is on 9 February at 7.30 pm in the lecture room of Paisley Museum and Art Galleries. The speaker will be Andrew Crummy on the above subject.

Andrew has kindly supplied the following information:

Born in Craigmillar, Edinburgh which is often seen as a poor area. In fact, my introduction to art was through the Craigmillar Festival Society, so my childhood memories are full of Community Arts events that involved festivals, drama, music, clowns, colour and laughter. I trained as an illustrator at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, then on a MA Design course at Glasgow School of Art. My professional life started off in London working for Everything But The Girl, New Musical Express, The Observer, Timeout, Goodhousekeeping. Through Design Agencies developed into large scale murals in busy High Streets across the UK for Midland Bank around building sites. These murals were often the history of cities, towns or places. This then developed into more artworks in public and community settings, the longest being around The Spindles Shooping Centre in Oldham which was a quarter of mile. Since then I have been fortunate to have been involved with many mural projects around the world. I have become involved with a range of book publications, multimedia events, festivals and educational programmes. I was the mural Convenor for The Prestonpans Murals Programme which now has over 50 public arts. Recently I have been the designer for The Battle of Prestonpans Tapestry, The Great Tapestry of Scotland and The Scottish Diaspora tapestry. 

Visitors are welcome with entry £3.00.

Mills Around the World

Our next lecture on the 26th January will be delivered by Stephen Clancy on the above subject.

Stephen is a local historian, who is also a trustee of the Paisley Thread Mill Museum. He leads heritage walks through Paisley and surrounding district.

His website is http://theurbanhistorian.co.uk/ and he is on twitter @utban_historian and facebook www.facebook.com/TheUrbanHistorian/?fref=ts

The lecture will commence at 7.30 pm in the lecture hall of Paisley Museum. Non-members welcome at a cost of £3.00.

A Journey Through the Imperial Wardrobe

The next meeting of the Institution is on 12 January 2017.The lecture will be delivered by David Rosier.

David has an extensive collection of Qing dynasty costumes and has lectured widely on these.

Please note this meeting will start at 2pm.

Visitors are welcome admission £3.00.