Stirling Smith Museum and Art Gallery - Smith History

Smith History

When the writer and former suffragette Eunice Murray made her impassioned plea for Scottish folk museums, it was in the wake of the Second World War. She saw the establishment of museums as an essential feature of a peaceful and civilised society, and being familiar with Continental folk museums, regretted their absence in Scotland.

At this time, the Smith Institute was already 70 years old and had a large collection of folk life material relating to lighting, heating, cooking, spinning and weaving, agriculture and Stirling life in times past. Its use as a billet for troops in both World Wars curtailed its potential and kept it closed, in the latter instance, until 1948. The rest of the twentieth century was spent in repairing the damage and recovering from the war, and none of the other rural communities to whom Eunice Murray was appealing, found the resources to set up additional museums. Otherwise, Stirlingshire might well have had museums in Aberfoyle, Bannockburn, Callendar, Cowie, Doune, Dunmore, Fallin, Gargunnock, Killearn, Killin, Kippen, Plean, St . Ninians and Thornhill. The circumstances were right in Dunblane, where the museum was established in 1943. At present, only the Stirling Smith, Dunblane Museum and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Museum operate within the vast 2,200 square kilometres of the Stirling Council area.

The Stirling Smith has had a chequered history of 130 years which is worth examining in detail. The founder, Thomas Stuart Smith was an artist who wanted the art gallery element of his Institute to predominate.

The Smith Institute first opened to the public on 11 August 1874. It was an occasion for great celebration in Stirling, and the shops in the town closed at 12 noon to allow people to attend the opening. Nevertheless, there were some mixed feelings, for Thomas Stuart Smith, had died in 1869 and the location of the building was felt by many people to be too far away from the old town.

At the opening ceremony, Provost Christie refuted criticism of the location by pointing out that ‘five or ten minutes walk would bring any one to the Institute from the most distant part of the Burgh’ and that the site was chosen on environmental grounds ‘free from the noise and bustle and free from the dirt, dust and smoke, so that the students of art, science and literature could pursue their studies there unmolested and free from annoyance’. It was perhaps thanks to Provost Christie that the organisation came into being at all, for Thomas Stuart Smith’s first thoughts were to leave his money to the Artists’ Benevolent Association.