Patrons and Politics in the Making of Scottish History

The Centre for Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph is the oldest and most eminent academic unit in North America to carry out research, graduate training and teaching on Scottish history and Scottish culture, with special emphasis on their global dimensions. Our graduate program was founded in 1968 and we are proud to host special events and public lectures that presents current research by graduate students and scholars from Scotland, Canada and elsewhere around the world.

The Centre for Scottish Studies

Join us for The Frank Watson Book Prize in Scottish History Lecture presented by Dr. Catriona Macdonald from the University of Glasgow.

Patrons and Politics in the Making of Scottish History: Past, Present and FutureIn this lecture Catriona Macdonald will consider the historic role of elite clubs and colourful patrons in the history of Scottish historical scholarship, then sketch the role of the state and of politicians in the writing of Scottish history in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century. She will conclude by offering a conjectural history of trends in more recent times which suggest that the future of the Scottish past is not as secure as we may think.

In 2025, Catriona Macdonald was awarded The Frank Watson Book Prize in Scottish History for her publication, The Caledoniad: The Making of Scottish History. Edinburgh: John Donald, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd., 2024.The jury's citation reads:The Caledoniad: The Making of Scottish History, is a captivating survey of the discipline of Scottish History as it professionalized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is an exceptionally rich and original contribution to our understanding of the evolution of the historical discipline in modern Scotland. It situates contemporary historical practices in relation to the development of important research institutions, from records repositories and libraries to universities and associations and societies, as it engages with their intellectual evolution and fragmentation through a variety of lenses. Macdonald shows how novelists and popular historians scorned by the historical establishment in their time often anticipated the interest and insights that later came from the academy. The book stands out for its importance to Scottish History as a field. It will be central to training and to scholarship for a generation and beyond.The Frank Watson Book Prize is awarded by the Centre for Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph in odd-numbered years for the best monograph, edited collection and/or book-length original work on Scottish History published in the previous two years.

About the Speaker...Catriona Macdonald was raised in Glasgow – a first-generation mainland Scot born to parents from the Outer Hebrides. She attended state schools in her home city before undertaking her first degree in Modern History at the University of St Andrews. After a year as a Bobby Jones Scholar at Emory University (GA, USA), she studied for her PhD at the University of Strathclyde, and gained a secondary teaching qualification in Edinburgh. Since then she has worked full-time in higher education for 30 years, first at Glasgow Caledonian University, and (currently) the University of Glasgow. Over the years Catriona has variously been editor of the Scottish Historical Review, president of the Scottish History Society, and a Trustee of the National Museums Scotland. Her publications include The Radical Thread: Political Change in Scotland, 1885-1924, and Whaur Extremes Meet: Scotland’s Twentieth Century – winner of the Saltire Society Scottish History book of the year in 2010. She has recently completed a history of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland which marks their 125th anniversary (this year).

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Patrons and Politics in the Making of Scottish History

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