I try to visit as many town museums as I can. They tend to be full of stories and stuffed with all manner of fascinating objects. I had a free day during my holidays and headed over to Bathgate in West Lothian. There isn't much difference distance-wise between going over the Queensferry Crossing or Kincardine Bridge. I opted for the latter as the roads would probably be quieter. The town is nestled below the Bathgate Hills and my one and only previous visit was after a trip to the Korean War Memorial in the vicinity. Truly one of Scotland's hidden historical gems.
Bathgate has a sizable population of around 25000 and it's past is dominated by industry, particularly mining and shale oil production, which superseded the weaving activities of the past. These trades, in turn, gave way to lighter manufacturing as the 20th century progressed. Today the town serves mainly as a commuter base for both Edinburgh and the greater Glasgow area. The proximity of the motorway and railway linking these two cities makes Bathgate a well connected place. I have family history connections to the general area as my great grandfather David Howieson and his siblings grew up in West Calder, around four miles distant as the crow flies. The town centre is situated on an incline and has a large number of shops. I parked up high and wandered down the bustling Hopetoun Street towards the Bennie Museum. Entry was free but I purchased a handful of postcards since these places don't exist on fresh air. I received a warm welcome, along with the usual "are you local" enquiry. As a good German would say, local ist relativ! Nobody else was browsing the exhibits but apparently a few folk had been in earlier. The museum opened in 1989 and is housed within two adjoining weavers cottages. The site later hosted a garage (which explains the antique petrol pump inside) and the Bennie family gifted the decaying properties to the town in 1980. After much restoration work, the museum emerged. There was a plethora of artefacts within and I'll focus my report on two of Bathgate's most famous sons, both of whom have their own displays in the main gallery. Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870) was a medical pioneer and a bust of him is pictured below.
The son of a baker, Simpson excelled in school and had a prodigious memory. He began his medical studies at the tender age of 14 and graduated to join the Royal College of Surgeons. He eventually became a professor of midwifery in Edinburgh and was appointed as one of Queen Victoria's royal physicians for Scotland. He developed the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic during childbirth and the Simpson Maternity Hospital in Edinburgh was named in his honour. This happens to be the place where yours truly came into the world in 1971. Simpson's later career focused on hospital infection and surgical sepsis. He also promoted the right of women to enter the medical profession. Another Bathgate lad greatly advanced the industrial revolution by making huge strides in the distillation of oil. James "Paraffin" Young (1811-1883) was apprenticed to his cabinet maker father upon leaving school. He found this unfulfilling and attended night school before accepting a place at Anderson’s College in Glasgow to study chemistry. His major breakthrough occurred in 1848 while working in the mining industry. Young noticed oil leaking from the ceiling of a mine tunnel and deduced there must be a way of intentionally extracting oil from coal by the application of heat. He worked upon this principle and successfully patented the results. This led to Young and his partners founding a business in Bathgate that became the first commercial oil refinery in the world. The enterprise used Young’s technique of distilling a paraffin spirit from locally mined shale. My great grandfather and his brothers all began their working lives in the shale pits. In 1865, Young branched out on his own and set up the Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Company. With the introduction of a new plant at Addiewell, Midlothian, he became the father of the industry. The venture was a world-wide success, selling oil and paraffin lamps as far afield as America. In modern times, famous citizens of Bathgate are pop music sensation Lewis Capaldi and racing driver Dario Franchitti. I departed the museum highly impressed with the varied collection on display.
I decided to drive by the former Bathgate Academy on my way to my next destination - the small village of Seafield, where I planned to climb a shale bing. The grand school building had featured in the museum and the text openly stated that profits from slavery had funded the construction. This is the way forward. It achieves little if you demolish a useful building because of who paid for it hundreds of years ago. Tearing the structure down also wipes out the associated history. Far better to educate people about how we must never make these mistakes again. Bathgate man John Newland made a fortune out of a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Having no legitimate children, he left his entire estate (including the slaves) to his home town and stipulated a free school should be erected. The will was contested by his sister and - after a long court battle - the Parish of Bathgate received around a quarter of the original sum. This money was invested for 15 years and the academy finally opened its doors in 1833. A new school was built in 1967 and the grand old building has now been converted to private apartments. I drove to the village of Seafield which is dominated the shale waste heap, now sculpted into a more pleasing shape and renamed Seafield Law. The bing is part of a wider nature reserve and a network of paths has been created, linking to Bathgate. The reserve also has an area of protected peat bog called Easter Inch Moss. This type of habitat - much abused in the past - is a haven for wildlife, as well as providing vital carbon storage. The flora and fauna on Seafield Law is less diverse as the reclamation project was only completed a quarter of a century ago. This situation should develop as time goes by.
The Scottish shale oil industry peaked around 1900 and gradually declined as the technology for deep-sea drilling was improved. A stay of execution was awarded in the late 1930s when the government kept shale refining afloat in order to ensure a domestic supply of fuel during the war years. The industry limped on after the conflict and the final shale mine closed in 1962. Today, the evidence of this once widespread process can be easily seen across West Lothian and the fringes of Midlothian in the form of the conical slag heaps, many now blooming in green and some even listed as important monuments. From the 650-feet summit of the Law, I had a fine view across the surrounding landscape. Easily discernible were the Five Sisters (pictured above) - a series of sawtooth shaped bings in the vicinity of West Calder. The waste shale material is non-toxic and free draining, therefore the heaps have largely been left in place, whereas the coal bings of Fife were removed from the landscape and were mostly gone by the end of the 80s. I vividly remember my dad taking me up the bings at Bowhill and Brighills, a post-industrial wasteland. The man-made mounds in Lothians - once regarded as a scar on the landscape - are now being quietly reclaimed by nature and the day will come when locals see them as mere hills.
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