Stirling Smith Museum and Art Gallery - The Early Years

The Early Years

The first Smith curator was Alexander Croall (1804–1885), a native of Angus who acquired a national reputation as a natural historian, and who was also the first curator of Derby City Museum before his appointment to Stirling. As a young man he had trained himself in botany through his frequent field trips. ‘On those occasions he commonly slept on the heather, carrying his slender commissariat in his pocket’. He corresponded with and was respected by other eminent natural historians, including Balfour, Dickie, Hooker and Darwin. In 1855, Sir William Hooker commissioned Croall to prepare a herbarium of the plants of Braemar for Queen Victoria.

Croall is still remembered for his standard four volume work, British Sea Weeds: Nature Printed published in 1860 and illustrated by W. G. Johnston. Such was his passion for sea weed that he had the nickname ‘Roosty Tangle.’

Croall had the talent for inspiring others. He had much influence on a young boy, David Buchan Morris (1867–1943) who grew up to be Town Clerk of Stirling and was deeply involved in running the Smith in the period 1901-1939. Morris wrote of Croall that:

'Never was there a happier appointment, and never was a man more happy in his situation. The Trustees... placed unbounded confidence in him... People from all parts consulted him on many subjects – objects rather – of natural science and archaeology and he met them in such a genial spirit that he seemed really to thank them for giving him the trouble.'

Mr Croall set a very high ideal of this place and work in his new sphere of life. He looked upon the Smith Institute as the shrine of art and science in Stirling, and himself as their high priest.

Working with Stirling High School art master Leonard Baker, Croall mounted an exhibition of contemporary art in 1878. Out of this grew the Stirling Fine Art Association. Croall also established the Stirling Field Club whose members helped build up the collections of the Smith Institute. In the early years the Field Club met in the Smith, and the successes of the museum are recorded in the printed transactions of the society 1878-1938. He was eloquent and inspirational. His paper Weeds – what they are, and what to do with them (November 1883) is a lyrical lecture on the biodiversity of Creation, and typical of his teaching. His daughter Annie Croall (1854–1927) also made a significant contribution in Stirling. After finding a baby abandoned on the Back Walk, she opened a house for homeless women and then the Stirling Children’s Home. Her story is recounted in Fifty Years on a Scottish Battlefield 1873-1923.

When Alexander Croall died, the Trustees appointed his son-in-law James Sword, who had been working in the County Council Office, as curator. During Sword’s curatorship (1885–1921), the specialist history and antiquities collections were built up through small but significant purchases and donations. Sword was a keen natural historian and sportsman and with skills in taxidermy. It was he who created the large collection of stuffed birds and animals, and put together the collection of communion tokens. He also did much to improve the grounds, making pavements, concrete kerbings and bases for the iron railings.