We're nearing completion of the cataloguing, conservation and reshelving of the Almanac Collection of The WS Society.
These tiny books rarely survive, being literal ephemera, they were printed and updated annually and tended to be discarded. Almanacs have been used for hundreds of years, originally as a calendar with significant religious days, solar/lunar and astronomical calculations.
Astrology was a natural progression, and Almanacs became very popular for their ‘prognostications’, folklore, and home remedies for illnesses.
By the C18, Scottish Almanacs were removed of all predictions, folk remedies and suchlike, and included a wealth of local information, who’s who in Scotland, fold out maps, topical illustrations.
They were particularly popular with Scottish landowners, farmers, smallholders etc, having an accurate calendar with which to plan their years activities.
This was the height of the Scottish Agricultural Revolution, the ‘Improvers’, many of whom were part of the legal profession and forms the background to the most interesting volumes in the Collection.
At the time, Almanacs were published with many blank pages intended for handwritten notes and many of our C18 volumes have extensive legal, personal and agricultural notes in tiny handwriting. We’ve been able to identify several of the owners, revealing the social and professional connections between the families as they were passed down over the last two centuries.
An upcoming online exhibition will feature some of the most unusual and fascinating examples in the collection.
