Collection: West Highland Museum

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Wikipedia)

  The museum has eight rooms on three floors, with an extensive collection of exhibits relating to the Jacobites, including the 18th century “secret portrait” of Bonnie Prince Charlie which Victor Hodgson found in a London junk shop. Apparently random marks on the base were focused by the cylindrical mirror to show the Prince’s image, a painting technique known as anamorphosis. The mirror would be removed when the owners needed to hide their loyalty. Later royalty is represented by a collection of Victoriana, including the regalia gifted by Queen Victoria to her favourite servant, John Brown.

  The museum covers military history, focusing on the Commando Basic Training Centre, set up during the Second World War at Achnacarry Castle near Spean Bridge. In 1936, during the demolition of the fort, the museum was gifted the pine panelling of the governor’s room, which it used to create its own Governor’s Room. This room also contains the birching table belonging to the burgh (i.e. the town council) of Fort William, used to restrain people subject to judicial corporal punishment; birching was last used to chastise an offending youth in 1948. The round, mahogany wine table in this room is reputed to have belonged to Colonel John Hill, Governor of the fort at the time of the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692. Hill met MacIain, chief of the Glen Coe MacDonalds, in the fort prior to the massacre.

  The museum displays the material artefacts collected by Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912), the Gaelic folklorist best known for his six-volume Carmina Gadelica, an influential but controversial compendium of edited Highland lore and literature. The museum has a collection of bagpipes of interest to scholars. The oldest of these are claimed to have been played at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, while another pair was said to have been given to Bonnie Prince Charlie. The experts are sceptical.

  Its latest significant acquisition was in November 2020. With grants from The Art Fund and The National Fund for Acquisitions (administered by National Museums Scotland on behalf of the Scottish government), the museum acquired Autumn in Knoydart. This painting was by Sir David Young Cameron, who was, during his lifetime, a member of the museum. Cameron also raised funds in 1928 for the purchase of the Strange Plate, a Jacobite copper plate for printing bank notes, commissioned by The Prince from Robert Strange and subsequently lost or abandoned. D. Y. Cameron printed a number of notes from the plate and more have been printed in 2021 as part of the museum’s planned centenary celebrations.

  This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “West Highland Museum”, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

  Source: Wikipedia

  Date: 2025

  Licence: CC-BY-SA