The Scottish Military Research Group - Commemorations Project

Adam Brown · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 2:58 pm Post subject:

They say they are planning to use 'Flicker' I assume it is Flickr and is based on their experience with their Scottish Political Archive:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishpoliticalarchive/

Is their plan is to upload an image and then comment on it and then allow others to comment? I'll be interested to see how they are going to use it for the LSF project for the Stirling pilot. It looks like images are linked by 'set' and 'tags'.

Looking at this page on their website it seems to reinforce the fact that not one of them bothered to type 'Scottish war memorials' in Google. It seems to me they don't think anyone is already doing what they are planning to do.

http://www.historyandpolitics.stir.ac.uk/research/flagshipprojects.php

However given the cack-handed effort they made of looking up the UKNIWM database for Scottish war memorials you can't really expect any better!

Adam

Kenneth Morrison · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 4:29 pm Post subject:

BJL · Joined: 03 Nov 2008 Posts: 10

Regardless of the negative aspects of the forum style of this board (which have already been acknowledged), I would expect anyone with a supposed interest in this area to be aware that this project contains so much more. Of course your average user may come here only for a name, or special place of interest, but this group claims to have a specialist interest.

In addition they have put in a grant application to the Royal Society Edinburgh based on their special interest and knowledge and no doubt made a claim to be doing something unique. To be awarded government/charitable funding based on such poor backgrouund research seems wrong. The fact that their presentation of the holdings of the UKNIWM is also downplayed, leads me to think they are deliberately withholding how “non-unique” their flagship project really is to gain funding.

Lindsay

DerekR · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 7:39 pm Post subject:

dhubthaigh · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:54 pm Post subject:

I have no idea what criteria requires to be fulfilled with the RSE to obtain a grant but in summary, from their website, I noted the following; The funding which the RSE provides supports Scotlands cultural, economic and social wellbeing. These are awarded to Fellows in support of research and scholarship.

I feel Derek may be correct in that if these individual(s) have not appeared on his longheld 'radar' of Great War interest then the case that they have presented for their unique project may have found birth here.

Adam Brown · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:32 pm Post subject:

David McNay · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:29 pm Post subject:

Indeed. We've beaten the SNWM into second place. That's quite an achievement.

Jim · Joined: 30 May 2008 Posts: 195

Adam Brown · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:34 pm Post subject:

The LSF team have finally taken an interest in our project! Here is a reply I got this evening to a mail I sent a couple of days ago, informing them of the 4,000 memorials we had already recorded here:

Dr James Smyth of the LSF has requested that it be posted here:

We are a group of Scottish historians who, though not ‘military historians’, are interested in the history of the memorialisation of conflicts, particularly the Great War. The support we have received from the Royal Society of Edinburgh is to help with the pilot project of searching for and recording memorials and the lives of the names on them, and to support the cost of archival research into the role of memorial committees after the Great War as well as the commemoration of the sex centenary of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1914.

It is clearly the issue of the proposed database that is of most concern to the members of the SWMP who feel that their efforts are not being given sufficient appreciation, and we are happy to recognise the valuable work the SWMP has done and is continuing to do. We would, however, stress what we believe makes our intended project different, though hopefully complementary.

We are aware that the last veterans of the Great War are now all deceased and this has caused us to think about how the War will be remembered in the future, particularly when so many memorials have been destroyed or are in serious disrepair. We are conscious that we are not alone in having these concerns, but alongside of this we wish to promote a greater understanding of the history of the war and its impact among school students while encouraging a greater interest in history generally among the younger generation. Given that Scotland and the Great War is part of the new higher syllabus and given that Stirling University graduates its own teachers we decided to focus our efforts on working with schools. We wish the pupils to work with their teachers in carrying out their own inquiries into their local memorial and the names thereon, thereby learning more about the history of the war while gaining experience of conducting actual historical research. It is our intention to create a minimal standardised format which the schools can contribute to while encouraging them to develop their own more ambitious online ‘essays’ if they so decide. While we will explore how best to standardise the database and how it can be made permanent, the current use of Web 2.0 tools such as Flickr are intended to show what can be done and will act as a complement to the main archival database rather than be the only location where the information will be made available.

Since members of the SWMP appear to be concerned at the use to which the RSE is putting its money, we would like to point out that part of our funding will be disbursed to the five schools in order to allow them to afford those online searches that demand payment. It is also unlikely that, given the nature of school firewalls, pupils would be allowed access to open discussion sites such as your forum.

If we have slighted the SWMP and its members in any way, that was not our intention. We are not seeking ‘exclusive rights’ over the study of the memorials of the Great War. As well as our teacher colleagues also involved in the project is a member of the Royal British Legion Scotland (Dunblane Branch) who has been conducting his own research, and we have discussed our plans with Poppyscotland. Over the next seven years there will be a huge amount of academic and public interest in the Great War. Whether our project goes beyond its pilot stage we do not know, but we fully intend making a contribution to the better understanding of the War, its aftermath and its memorialisation.

While we would be happy to explore possible co-operation we are disappointed with the confrontational tone of the discussion and some of the comments made about us and the RSE, especially before allowing us any opportunity to reply. This does not seem to us to be the best way of establishing a positive working relationship.

Yours sincerely,

Dr James J Smyth

Dr Michael A. Penman

Dr Alasdair Ross

Ms Sarah Bromage

Dr James J Smyth
Senior Lecturer in History

School of History & Politics
University of Stirling
Stirling
FK9 4LA

apanderson · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 6:33 am Post subject:

....."the commemoration of the sex centenary of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1914."

Eh?

Personally, I don't think I've heard of that. Confused

I'm still under the impression (as I previously said) that I believe this new project to be a more or less duplicated effort. Why? We've shown that by sheer determination and a lot of hard work, the massive amount of information on both our forums has needed no external funding (apart from out of out own pockets), and has needed no 'umbrella' to sit under.

We openly acknowledge all sources, whether it's from the CWGC/SNWM databases, Birth Registrations, Census Returns, etc., but at least we got our facts right over image copyright issues - which brings me the point that I notice 'Lest Scotland Forgets' now appeared to have removed this from their pdf! Anyone using Scotland's People or visiting GRO in person can't miss the fact that images must not be reproduced unless for personal use.

I notice also that 'twgpp' gets a plug alongside CWGC - I wonder if anyone has taken the time to notice that for every photo there's a charge or knows that there wouldn't be one single photo available from them if it hadn't been for volunteers getting them in the first place. (This is of my personal bug-bears - I was a volunteer for years, supplying thousands of photos, then when I asked for one in return, I was asked for a fee - needless to say from that day forward, they got no more photos from me!)

The letter/e-mail you received Adam - is this the extent of the 'open' communication we are to expect? I would have thought if someone was (obviously) following the thread and reading the comments, we could have expected some interaction?

That's one positive side of forums - people can put their own points of view forward whether confrontational or not - but this point seems to have been missed - it appears that it's more the case of read, say nothing and pass it on.

Anne Rolling Eyes

spoons · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 8:59 am Post subject:

First let me say that I wish anyone well who intends to contribute to the public awareness of the sacrifices made by individuals and families in times of war and I would not want to dissuade anyone from contributing, wherever this should take them.

Having said that, this project has been going for over four and a half years and many of us were collecting data prior to that. I have personally spent several thousand hours between this and the War Graves Project. I have also driven several thousand miles at my own expense to photograph and document these memorials, not to mention my phone and postage bills, cost of books and membership of Ancestry etc. I don't want it to sound as if I am boasting or complaining, members of this project will know what is involved but I thought it right to point out to others the level of our commitment.

As I recently posted elsewhere, we now have well over 500 memorials in Dumfries and Galloway alone on the project, many of these quite difficult to access; in private houses, schools and closed churches etc. If I had to reproduce this effort, I simply would not do it.

In my opinion, the great strength of this project is that we have brought together the significant majority of those with and interest in Scottish War Memorials and we bring with us a wide variety of backgrounds, experience and interest including family history research, military history, architecture, the built environment, the men commemorated, the artists...........the list just goes on. I am not sure that a project founded from a single group such as academia would bring that variety of interest and experience with them although they would doubtless have other advantages and contacts.

Over the years we have established contacts and many of our members are also members of many related organisations such as the Great War Forum, Scottish Stained Glass Symposium, WW2 forums, Family History Groups, In From the Cold Project, War Memorials Trust and many others. These groups all know us to be THE central point for Scottish War Memorials with no similar project for any other country or region in the world.

I especially like the fact that we include memorials from all periods, so for example WW2 commemorations can appear on separate memorials or as additions to the WW1 memorial. A project dedicated to WW1 exclusively would incidentally show the WW2 names for some but not others. The same applies to deaths from other wars such as Afghanistan.

If we have a weakness it is that we do not 'blow our own trumpet' enough. Our publicity could be better to the schools, colleges and the general public and we need to find a way to make our online information more easily available via search engines or by just browsing.

\Paul

Jim · Joined: 30 May 2008 Posts: 195

apanderson · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:37 am Post subject:

Oh - that's a term I haven't heard before Jim.

Here was me thinking someone had got their wires crossed somewhere and it turns out to be me!!

Thanks for putting me right!

Anne

Jim · Joined: 30 May 2008 Posts: 195

Adam Brown · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:44 pm Post subject:

I am not going to comment too much on the LSF letter.

I don't understand the reference to PoppyScotland being of importance. Their organisation focuses on the living not the dead so why they would be particularly interested in a war memorial project is beyond me. Perhaps that time would have been better spent by LSF discussing their plans with us?

Exculsive rights - I don't know if anyone is claiming that, the issue here is a duplication of effort which benefits no-one and confuses the public.

'Exploring possible co-operation' - I think I get the feeling from our members comments and the tone of the LSF mail that neither party actually has much appetite for it.

We are well beyond a pilot stage so my personal feeling is that we continue as we are, steadily recording war memorials as we have been doing for all these years, and let 'Lest Scotland Forgets' go their own way with their Stirling area pilot.

Adam