The exhibition took 6 months to plan with artefacts and documents being retrieved from across the collections and from the National Records Office. The remit for the ESMS team was to tell the story of our Founders and shed light on what kind of people they were and the times they lived in.
Jon Cooper, the ESMS Heritage officer summed up the challenge:
“Schools naturally glorify their founders over time until their true personality is lost under a veneer of almost saint like reverence. We set out to illustrate their true lives through their most personal items, set in the context of the society of their time.”
This remit proved difficult to achieve as the items directly relating to the Founders were few and far between. But those items which were directly attributable to the person were linked by other contemporary documents and objects to tell the life story.
For example, little is known of the early life of Daniel Stewart. Established narratives such as his adventures in India and his apprenticeship as a wig maker have, as yet, no firm evidence to back them up. Yet we have a fine collection of his legacy items handed down in his will. His portrait dominated the exhibition space, we displayed his own handwritten notebooks and his desk was placed under it so a visitor could re-enact the scene above them. But we are still left wondering how a man of lowly beginnings rose to such stature, to be seated before as distinguished painter as Sir Henry Raeburn. Martin McMenigall, who researched Daniel Stewart’s life for the exhibition was amazed by the gaps in his life story and vowed to dig deeper in the months ahead.
The life of Mary Erskine is also shrouded in mystery to a certain extent, a situation not helped by the lack of artefacts and the haphazard approach to record keeping prevalent in the late 16th Century. But Christine Collingwood and Alison Kennedy of the MES Guild Archive team did an incredible job, taking us back to life among the yetts, alleyways and luckenbooths of the High Street to really bring Mary’s life into perspective. The wonderful display included a selection of the herbs and spices that would have been grown by Mary in the Physic Garden and sold in her ‘Druggist’ store that wafted fragrances around the exhibition stand.
In contrast, Robert Cunningham’s story has been well documented thanks to his involvement in education, being a founding member of the Free Church of Scotland and being set in the document rich times of the Victorian period. The collection at the School includes transcripts of his talks at University, and references from satisfied George Watson’s parents, written at the time of his departure to set up The Edinburgh Institution, which helped paint the picture of him as a professional educationalist and family man.
The general conclusion at the exhibition was that our founders were notable people but not ‘plaster saints’. Their lives were shaped by their philanthropy and resolution, but their motivations and methods warrant further research – many more lines of investigation await to be unravelled.
Held between 24th and 28th March, the team welcomed over 360 visitors to the exhibition. Plans are in already been made for a sequel and perhaps a more enduring exhibition in the Merchant Hall over the summer.
