1810s Haddington library borrowings of Samuel Smiles father of the author of “Self-Help”

One of Haddington in East Lothian’s most famous sons is Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), author and government reformer. His best known work is a book called Self-Help (1859), arguing for the poor to improve their lot through self education and industry, a viewpoint that fits well with Victorian moral values and thinking, but might in some of its arguments raise eyebrows among many today.

Samuel’s father was also called Samuel Smiles. The other day professional genealogist Fergus Smith tweeted about a circa 1820 reference to the father, noting that he was working then as a stationer, not just the merchant he is often referred to in his son’s biographies.

This reminded me that I’d encountered the elder Samuel as a borrower in the free Haddington town library borrowing records I transcribed and analysed as part of my history PhD at Dundee University. Haddington was unusual at this time in having a free public library for its inhabitants to use, and its borrowing registers for many of the years 1732-1816 survive.

I thought it might be nice to blog here about what the father was reading. Each line below includes the date a book was borrowed from the library, the book borrowed details as noted at that time, and in many cases in brackets fuller title/publication details per the 1828 Haddington library catalogue.

• 1810 Nov 1 – Burns Works vol 2d (Burns’s Works, 4 vols, 1803)
• 1811 Jan 23 – Beauties of Scotland 4 Vo (Beauties of Scotland: containing an Account of the Agriculture, Commerce, Mines, Manufactures, Population, &c. of each County, 5 vols, plates)
• 1811 Feb 1 – 1 vol Rollins Roman (Rollin’s Roman History, from the Foundation of Rome till the Battle of Actium, 16 vols)
• 1811 Feb 21 – 2 vol Abercrumes wariers (Abercromby’s Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation, 2 vols)
• 1811 Mar 15 – Robertsons History on Amaresia (sic) (Robertson’s History of America, 4 vols)
• 1812 Feb 19 – 1 vol Cooks Voyages (Cook’s Voyages to the Pacific Ocean)
• 1812 Mar 26 – 2 vol Capt Cooks Voyages
• 1812 Apr 7 – 3 vol Coocks Voges
• 1812 Sep 10 – 1 vol Rolins History
• 1812 Oct 6 – 2 vol Rollins History
• 1812 Oct 15 – 2d vol Rollins History
• 1812 Oct 30 – Rollans History 3 vol
• 1812 Dec 8 – 5 vol Rolins History
• 1813 Feb 4 – 7 Vol Rollins History
• 1813 Feb 27 – 8 Vol Roilns History
• 1813 Apr 19 – 9 vol Rolins History
• 1813 May 4 – Rolins History 10 vol

It is likely that father and son borrowed books after 1816, but I did not have access to borrowing records for that period. The earlier borrowing records we have are a rare survival. The original manuscript registers are held in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Incidentally Samuel Smiles the author appears in my writings about this library, because in his autobiography he recalled his early reading experiences at this Haddington library:

I did not make much use of the library. Patrick Hardie, the master of the English School, was the librarian; and when I took out Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, he havered a bit to me, in his dictatorial way, as to how I was to read it. I did not like this, and went to other libraries

To read more about the Haddington library at this time see either my PhD thesis or my Journal of Scottish Historical Studies academic journal paper about it. The latter is available freely online, via green Open Access rules, in the publications section of my personal website.

My Haddington library borrowing transcripts and database have been donated to the Books and Borrowing 1750-1830 project at the University of Stirling, and should hopefully appear online through that at a future date.

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A retrospective look at my first history academic journal paper 15 years ago, on Haddington library borrowings in the late 18th/early 19th centuries

15 years ago in 2006 my first academic journal paper as a historian was published. Sole authored, it looked at the borrowing records between 1732 and 1816 of Gray Library in Haddington, East Lothian, an unusual example of an early free town library. The paper examined these borrowing records to see what they told us about the town’s reading habits at this time.

I thought it might be nice to do a retrospective blog about this journal paper. The paper was published in the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, and the full published PDF version is available on my website, in green Open Access form on my publications web page. Note I had earlier co-authored publications from my computer science days, but this was the first academic journal paper I wrote fully myself, and my first history piece after retraining as a historian, picking up BA, taught MPhil and PhD history degrees.

The paper was written fairly early on in my part-time history PhD at Dundee University, investigating Scottish reading habits circa 1750-1820 (my full PhD thesis is also available freely online). I decided to write the paper to give me a push to write up this good case study, but it was also creating good analysis I could use in my PhD thesis.

I submitted the paper too late for that year’s competition by the journal for postgraduate students. I remember Callum Brown, the then JSHS editor and at the time a professor of history at Dundee University, asking me if I wanted him to hold my paper back for the next year’s competition. But my health then was so precarious with my neurological disease resisting treatment, so I asked him to just consider it for normal publication as soon as possible. So he did.

It’s common for academics looking back at their early published writing to find it naive or flawed in other ways. I’m actually really proud of this paper, and its breadth and depth of analysis. Admittedly I would struggle to write it now, as my neurological disease has progressed more. But I still think irrespective of that aspect that it stands up well to the test of time.

I was blessed with rich library borrowing records, though I had to transcribe these all myself, working on a microfilm copy of the manuscript originals at home (yes I have my own microfilm reader!). That and the subsequent checking took many months, but gave me over 5000 borrowings to analyse.

Using my genealogical skills and research, especially in the then National Archives of Scotland, I researched the library borrowers extensively, allowing me to identify hundreds of them confidently, and note their gender, occupation, birth and death dates, and address if more specific than (or different from) Haddington. Adding these genealogical details allowed me to examine the borrowers and their borrowings in myriad different ways and groupings, and was a very powerful tool.

Such analysis was only practically possible because I built a linked relational database of the library borrowing records and its readers. This is something that at that time was groundbreaking in a Scottish book history context, but even today would be unusual. The three linked relational tables of borrowers, borrowings and books were then loaded into a MySQL relational database system, where I could run SQL queries to search for the borrowings of specific groups of borrowers that I was interested in. For example the following query counts the most popular books among teenage boy borrowers:

SELECT LinkToTitle, Count(LinkToTitle) FROM
(SELECT *
FROM borrowings, readers
WHERE ((borrowings.LinkToBorrower=readers.ReaderID
OR borrowings.LinkToOtherReader=readers.ReaderID)) AND readers.AgeOfBorrower=”teenage” AND readers.Gender=”male”) AS tmptable GROUP by LinkToTitle
ORDER by Count(LinkToTitle) DESC

Comparing male and female borrowings at the library was very important, and allowed me to engage using this substantial data with academic theories and contemporary opinions about differing reading habits by gender. I also relished the way this system allowed me to examine other groups in detail. For example I was able to pull out the borrowings of teenage users of the library, both boys and girls, which led to a particularly satisfying section of my paper.

One branch of my family tree traces back to Haddington, and it was a delight to see ancestors pop up among the library’s borrowers. Two of them sneaked into my published journal paper: my 5xg-granny Jean Veitch (later Mrs Somner) and her father William Veitch, a watchmaker in the town.

My Haddington library records and database have recently been gifted to the Books and Borrowing project based at the University of Stirling. This means that other researchers can build on my work, indeed a number of them already are, which has been fascinating to see. And ultimately the Haddington borrowings I recorded will be available to view freely online.

The findings in the paper were numerous, ranging across changing reading habits, variation by gender and occupation, demonstrating the use of books to educate young minds, and different ways of fitting in the library into your working week. However I think its main contribution was as a proof of concept. Both for the power of relational databases to analyse library borrowing records in a myriad of ways, but also for the potential of enhancing the library borrowings by other genealogical and historical research to better contextualise the borrowers and their borrowings. However on a personal level it was also a proof of concept for me, re my ability to write and publish academic journal papers. Even if with it sailing through peer review with no revisions required prior to publication it perhaps gave me an overly optimistic and unrealistic view of the tribulations that might ensue in that process!

Again my journal paper about the Haddington library borrowers is freely available to download and read on my website, as a PDF linked on the publications page.

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