A series of posts from our volunteers … Laura Gunstensen – Library Volunteer The ‘Botanics’ have always been a very special place for me since I arrived, fresh…
A series of posts from our volunteers … Helen Bennett A period of secondment from Scottish Arts Council in 2006 confirmed my ambition to volunteer with Royal Botanic…
A series of posts from our volunteers … Simon Muirhead – Trawling through the Archive For some years I have been a member of EDFAS [Edinburgh Decorative and…
A series of posts from our volunteers … Peter Middleton I’m a retired journalist, cum corporate communications director. Ok, so I was a sort-of spin doctor working for…
In March 2020, in response to the Coronavirus outbreak, the RBGE Library, Archives and Photography staff, along with most of our colleagues, found ourselves working remotely from home….
We Will Remember Them Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh Roll of Honour, 1914–1919 At the outbreak of war in August 1914 the appeal for H.M. Forces met with ready…
Situated beneath the Memorial to the members of staff at RBGE who gave their lives during the First World War is a smaller, but no less poignant memorial…
Research about Victorian botanical illustrator Anne Pratt turns into a Beatrix Potter book binding mystery… Anne Pratt was born in 1806 and, suffering from poor health as a…
Whilst helping to catalogue the library’s rare book collection for my Book History and Material Culture placement, I came across a herbal from 1586 that contained a very…
“Indirectly the war has robbed the Botanical Society of a member of its Council and a frequent contributor to its meetings in the person of Dr. R.C. Davie,…
Henry McBeath was from Rogart in Sutherland, born in November 1878 to James McBeath, a farm grieve (foreman) and his wife Johan from Rovie, a farm in Rogart…
By Hannah Swan Before publisher’s bindings were de rigueur, texts came in flimsy paper ‘wrappers’, leaving the permanent binding to the new owner. Because of this, many books from…
Andrew Ewing Calder was born in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, on the 12th January 1884 to Robert Calder, a blacksmith, and his wife Sarah Jane, who was a tailoress. Calder…
By Hannah Swan While browsing our Rare Book Collection, we recently came across a boxed book that was as of yet uncatalogued in our online system, Kurtzes Handbüchlein…
By Hannah Swan Paolo Boccone’s Recherches et Observations Naturelles de Monsieur BOCCONE, Gentilhomme Sicilien…, published in the translated French in 1674 in Amsterdam, offers several tantalizing clues of…