Collecting the nation in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1832–91

Abstract

The sixty-year period from 1832 to 1891 was key to the development of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and its museum, during which time its collection was transferred to national ownership and greater emphasis began to be placed on social and cultural history. This article analyses acquisition data to add substance to the knowledge of the meanings attached by the antiquarian society to the collection of Scottish materials from the period after ad 1100. Its purpose is, first, to ascertain the extent to which the society developed targeted collecting strategies and, second, to demonstrate the ways in which the museum’s collecting practices were influenced by the society’s priorities and broader antiquarian ideas on the value of material sources in the study of history. It is argued that by 1891 the museum’s collecting strategies had shifted from a unionist-nationalist framework towards an international comparative approach which elevated the ‘Scottishness’ of the museum’s collection by representing Scotland as a distinct nation of Europe with its own recognizable material history.