JACOBITE BANK NOTES REBORN Iain Ferguson As Bonnie Prince Charlie and his supporters fled across the Highlands following their defeat at Culloden in April 1746, belongings were scattered, lost or given away. One such lost item, a copper printing plate for producing Jacobite banknotes, was discovered in 1835 close to a ford across the River Spean. It now resides in Fort William’s West Highland Museum. It is known that the Prince crossed and recrossed that ford in August 1746 and during his flight through the heather, historians can only assume it was lost from his baggage about that time. The plate was made by Orcadian Robert Strange. A printing press had been set up just before the Battle of Culloden, but never produced a banknote. The plate was forgotten for 90 years until its discovery and was passed into the possession of the family of General Hugh Ross of Glenmoidart, who gifted it to Cluny Macpherson just before the general’s death in 1864. It was then that it first came to wider public notice through an academic article and it is thought a handful of prints were made from it in the 1890s by the Jacobite scholar Walter Biggar Blaikie. It was acquired by the museum in 1928 at the sale of Cluny’s effects in London, with the Scottish artist D Y Cameron raising funds to purchase the plate. A total of 52 numbered and signed prints were then made, being sold
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for 10/6 each to raise funds for the museum, which had only come into being six years earlier in 1922. No other prints were made in the last century. Now, 275 years after it was made, the plate has once again served the purpose for which it was made with a further 22 prints of the Jacobite banknotes being produced, this time to mark the centenary of the museum itself. The first of this numbered series will be sold by public auction at Messers Lyon and Turnbull this month. Number one will being unique in that it is being framed in beechwood sourced from the famous Beech Avenue at Achnacarry, the seat of Clan Cameron. As this and the others will undoubtedly be sold for prices well beyond the wallet of the average person, the museum will be organising an online raffle, with tickets a more affordable £10 each. This will bring the opportunity for a larger number of people to have the chance of owning one of these exclusive, limited edition pieces of history, while also helping to raise funds to continue the good work of the museum. Keep an eye on the West Highland Museum social media pages to get your ticket.
| august 2021
Lochaber Life August 2021.indd 18
09/07/2021 15:39:42
