Tag Archives: schools

New Cumnock Auld Kirk Project

by bmcuser

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming New Cumnock Primary School’s P6 class to the Centre, to research the people and places connected to New Cumnock’s Auld Kirk. The class project is part of the New Cumnock Auld Kirk & Village Heritage Trail. The class has already been out and about in the Auld Kirkyard, gathering names of people buried there many years ago, with their teacher Miss Smith and project leader Bobby Guthrie.

Copy of New Cumnock Primary Visit May 2013 (13)

They came along to the Burns Monument Centre to find out more about some of the prominent local people with lairs in the Auld Kirk, such as teacher Andrew Stirling, Reverend James Young, and the merchant Thomas Kirkland. With expert guidance from the Centre’s Registrars, the pupils were able to search Scotland’s People. They found information about these New Cumnock families from Birth, Death and Marriage Records, Census Records, and Old Parish Records.

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To find out as much as possible about New Cumnock’s past, the pupils were also keen to look at maps, photographs and archive records of the area. The archivist showed the class some wonderful records, for example the New Cumnock Baptismal Register (1796 – 1846), a New Cumnock Public School logbook from the 1870s, Ayr Presbytery records showing Rev. Young’s ordination in 1758, and New Cumnock Poor Relief records.

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Photographs, maps and newspapers help us build a vivid picture of a place. The pupils enjoyed browsing through the old Ayrshire newspapers on microfilm. They were also keen to compare New Cumnock of today with the village in the photographs of the 19th century. Maps were also helpful to look at the development of the village over the years, and to compare streets and landmarks with the village in 2013.

Copy of New Cumnock Primary Visit May 2013 (9)

To make the most of their visit the pupils were given a special tour of the building, giving them an idea of how it is used on a daily basis, for registration, archives, local and family history. They were also keen to find out about the history of the Burns Monument itself and even managed to squeeze in our outdoor quiz. It was a busy day!

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 There’s another nice story about the visit on the East Ayrshire Council website.

(Thanks to EAC and Miss Smith at New Cumnock Primary School for the great photos!)

Prospectus for Kilmarnock Academy, 1876

by bmcuser

Today is World Heritage Day, so it is fitting that our latest piece of digitised local heritage is very topical. We’ve been doing a lot of work on school and education history recently, speaking to schools about their own archives, and thinking of ways this material can be used in 21st century education. We’re also interested in how our collections and expertise can inform future developments with local schools and regeneration.

Copy of Kilmarnock Academy Prospectus 1876 image

We’ve unearthed some fascinating documents from Kilmarnock’s 19th century school history. One significant item is the Prospectus for Kilmarnock Academy, 1876.  This was produced for the opening of the new school at the corner of North Hamilton Street and Woodstock Street, after its move from the original site at Green Street. The prospectus gives a summary of the curriculum and the rate of fees. It states the intention of the school is to “prepare youths for the Office or Counting-house, and Students for the University.”

Just click on the image below to see the digitised booklet, and zoom in to see more detail.

Park School’s Town Trails visit

by bmcuser

Pupils from Park School’s class S4B visited us recently to do some research into Kilmarnock’s history, after taking part in the Town Trail with Grange Academy teacher Graham Boyd. On the Town Trail the pupils visited the Laigh Kirk, Kilmarnock Cross, and other historic landmarks in the town. They were keen to find out more, using our maps, photographs, books and archive records.

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One of the activities of the Town Trail centres around the fatal accident at the Laigh Kirk in 1801. Pupils are encouraged to write their own eye-witness account of the accident. The class were able to see the original pamphlet, Narrative of the dreadful accident, which happened in the Parish Church of Kilmarnock on Sunday the 18th October, 1801, printed in Glasgow in 1802 for H. Crawford, Kilmarnock bookseller.

Copy of Laigh Kirk Disaster 1801

Pupils looked at our maps and plans of Kilmarnock, from 1819 to the 1960s. They were able to trace the changes to the town, and using the large scale maps from the 1850s, they were able to see great detail such as names of inns, location of wells, water pumps, and the weighing machine at the Butter Market (soon to be the Corn Exchange)!

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Local newspapers and magazines are a great source of historical information about the town. We showed the pupils the Kilmarnock periodicals dating from 1817 and some of the earliest Kilmarnock Standards, from the 1860s. They also learned how to read the Standard on microfilm.

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Pupils had great fun using our Digital Kilmarnock Edition, which contains some of Robert Burns best known poems read by Billy Kay. We also showed the class where our most precious and important material is kept. The Archive Store contains Town Council records dating back to the 1690s and church records from even earlier. Our rarest books are also kept here, including the first book printed in Ayrshire. The best part was moving the shelving!

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 It was a thoroughly enjoyable visit for everyone involved. As always, we all learned something new!

Illustrating Kilmarnock’s Past

by bmcuser

How can you use local history and archive material as a creative springboard for a comic or graphic novel? So much of our material can be used as a stimulus for creativity, for example stories or visual art or a bit of both. We were delighted to host a workshop with the graphic novelist duo Metaphrog this week which explored this.

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A very adventurous S2 class from Grange Academy joined us, and learned loads about how comic book characters and stories can be formed, drawn and read.

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Using a big smattering of Kilmarnock-specific local history and archive material, including photos, 19th century adverts and pamphlets, old maps, and records such as Poor Relief, the pupils were able to visualise a very different Kilmarnock and create something new and fresh.

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We focused specifically on character, using things like pictures of Kilmarnock House when it was the Industrial and Ragged School, and the annual reports of the school c1870, which detail the circumstances of the children and the kind of work they did while there (making cravats and shoes for example).

Ragged and Industrial School

We explored some unusual material from Kilmarnock’s past, for example a collection of articles and pamphlets about the controvesial steeplechasing in the town c1850s. There was a heated public debate about whether the steeplechasing should be allowed to continue or not, with colourful descriptions and hysterical rhetoric about the moral (rather than physical) dangers of such events.

Metaphrog gave the class lots of great advice on how to create a character that readers will engage with, and practical suggestions about positioning characters on the page, sequencing, and characters’ movements.

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For a couple of hours, the Robert Burns Suite was a creative hothouse, and the pupils were keen to develop their ideas further at school. Everyone really enjoyed Metaphrog’s input – their presentations and discussions were so stimulating – hopefully they gathered a few more fans from Kilmarnock!

The workshop was kindly supported by Historic Scotland, the Heritage Lottery Fund, and Live Literature Fund, which is supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland and managed by Scottish Book Trust.

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New Farm Primary’s Burns Visit

by bmcuser

New Farm Primary’s lovely P7 class visited the Burns Monument Centre recently in preparation for their Burns Supper. The class looked at our Burns Collection, including the numerous translations of Burns. They were also very keen on the digital Kilmarnock Edition, where they could turn pages and listen to audio versions of some of the poems. ‘To a Louse’ was a particular favourite!

Copy of New Farm Primary Burns Visit 2013(2)

The class also had a peek inside the Archive Store, and learned about the kind of material that’s kept there and why. We spoke about the Kirk Session records, and why young “rantin’ rovin’ Robin” featured in the Mauchline records.

The P7s had already done some research into Burns and the Kilmarnock Edition. They knew all about John Wilson and the subscribers to the book. We had a look at some photographs of the location of Wilson’s press, near Waterloo Street. The pupils also planned a visit to The Dick Institute to see the replica of Wilson’s printing press. We looked at some old maps of Kilmarnock town centre to work out where this and other Burns-related places were located, for example Tam Samson’s house.

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With great care the pupils then had a look at some of our rare books, printed by John Wilson in Kilmarnock in the 1780s. For example, the bard’s friend David Sillar’s Poems, which was of particular interest to one pupil who hailed from Tarbolton. And the Wilson print of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which was apparently a favourite of Burns.

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The pupils also learned a lot about the history of our Burns Monument, and looked at material relating to its opening in 1879, including newspaper reports and town council records.

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Finally, we made excellent use of the Centre’s family history resources, which staff used to show the class how to create a Robert Burns family tree. The picture below shows Registration staff demonstrating the Scotland’s People website.

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The class had a fantastic time, and we were thrilled that they engaged so easily with some very old books, maps and records, and of course, the poetry of Robert Burns.