Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When was the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum first opened?
The Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum – formerly The Smith Institute – has played a very special part in the history of Stirling since its foundation in 1874. Established by the bequest of artist Thomas Stuart Smith (1815–1869) on land supplied by the Burgh of Stirling, it is an historic public-private partnership which has continued to the present day. It was founded as a gallery of mainly contemporary art, with museum and library reading room ‘for the benefit of the inhabitants of Stirling, Dunblane and Kinbuck’.
The final area was the General Museum. On the east side of the building with its face to Stirling, it was lit by eight large windows and housed the museum collection. After the difficulties with the building encountered in the 1970s, this area became the storage area, and is no longer accessible to the public.
The Constitution of the Stirling Fine Art Association allowed the purchase of works of art to be added to the Smith collections from any surplus funds, after all expenses incurred by the exhibition had been defrayed. Unfortunately, these circumstances rarely occurred.
At this time, the Smith Institute was already 70 years old and had a large collection of folk life material relating to lighting, heating, cooking, spinning and weaving, agriculture and Stirling life in times past. Its use as a billet for troops in both World Wars curtailed its potential and kept it closed, in the latter instance, until 1948. The rest of the twentieth century was spent in repairing the damage and recovering from the war, and none of the other rural communities to whom Eunice Murray was appealing found the resources to set up additional museums. Otherwise, Stirlingshire might well have had museums in Aberfoyle, Bannockburn, Callendar, Cowie, Doune, Dunmore, Fallin, Gargunnock, Killearn, Killin, Kippen, Plean, St . Ninians and Thornhill. The circumstances were right in Dunblane, where the museum was established in 1943. At present, only the Stirling Smith, Dunblane Museum and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Museum operate within the vast 2,200 square kilometres of the Stirling Council area.
It is believed that Keighley Museum was established in 1892, because that is when its first location, Eastwood House, Keighley, was purchased for the public. In 1950 the local benefactor Sir Bracewell Smith purchased Cliffe Castle, and had it redesigned as a museum and art gallery for the people of Keighley. The museum re-opened as Cliffe Castle Museum and Art Gallery in 1959.
When the writer and former suffragette Eunice Murray made her impassioned plea for Scottish folk museums, it was in the wake of the Second World War. She saw the establishment of museums as an essential feature of a peaceful and civilised society, and being familiar with Continental folk museums, regretted their absence in Scotland.
Mr Croall set a very high ideal of this place and work in his new sphere of life. He looked upon the Smith Institute as the shrine of art and science in Stirling, and himself as their high priest.
Thomas Stuart Smith (1815 - 1869) was a Scottish painter and philanthropist known for creating what is now called the Stirling Smith Museum and Art Gallery, located in Stirling, Scotland.
He moved to England to lecture at Reading in 1964 before settling in Stirling in Scotland as Professor of Botany at Stirling University. A keen amateur artist he was actively involved with the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum.
John Scott was also personally involved as part of the team constructing the William Wallace exhibition of 1997, the Victorian Stirling exhibition in 1998, and the Stirling Story exhibition in 2000. Each of these was a major production showing different aspects of the Smith's collections.
The centre gallery, Gallery 2, was conceived as the watercolour gallery, and was top lit. It is now used for temporary exhibitions. The large gallery, Gallery 3 was the gallery for the oil paintings of the foundation collection and remained so until 1970. It was also top lit. At present, it houses the Stirling Story exhibition. In 1874 both of these galleries were painted dark marone with the coves in green.
The Smith Institute first opened to the public on 11 August 1874. It was an occasion for great celebration in Stirling, and the shops in the town closed at 12 noon to allow people to attend the opening. Nevertheless, there were some mixed feelings, for Thomas Stuart Smith, had died in 1869 and the location of the building was felt by many people to be too far away from the old town.
Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum is an institution based in Stirling, Central Scotland, dedicated to the promotion of cultural and historical heritage and the arts, from a local scale to nationally and beyond. It is also known locally by its original name of "The Smith Institute". Its current Director since 1994 is Dr Elspeth King.
When the Smith site was selected, it was not in an advantageous part of the burgh. 1400 people signed a petition pointing this out. The building was the second to be built on the north side of the Dumbarton Road, in the King's Park, which was under development as an up-market residential area. The King's Park was cut off from the old town by the medieval wall. It remained unconnected until a new vehicular road was driven through at the Corn Exchange when the Carnegie Library was built in 1904. There was no direct road to the Smith. The pathway from the High School of Stirling (now the Stirling Highland Hotel) was created as a main access route to the Smith only after the Institute was opened to the public. The issue of breaching the medieval wall was one which was traditionally opposed by the people of Stirling. Today, these issues would be resolved by public consultation. The autocratic way in which the site was selected and the extinction of the hope for a museum facility in the old town was deeply resented, as shown by the obituary notice in the Stirling Observer which recounted the story of the Stirling School of Art:
In 1849 Alexander Smith died and eventually Smith's new inheritance enabled him to create an art collection at a studio in Fitzroy Square that included his own work. He decided to create an Institute in Stirling to house his new collection. He drew up plans for a library, museum and a reading room. He signed the trust into existence in November 1869 with himself, James Barty, the Provost of Stirling, and A. W. Cox, a fellow artist, as trustees. He was prevented however from seeing his plans fulfilled as he died the next month in Avignon.[1]
Working with Stirling High School art master Leonard Baker, Croall mounted an exhibition of contemporary art in 1878. Out of this grew the Stirling Fine Art Association. Croall also established the Stirling Field Club whose members helped build up the collections of the Smith Institute. In the early years the Field Club met in the Smith, and the successes of the museum are recorded in the printed transactions of the society 1878-1938. He was eloquent and inspirational. His paper Weeds – what they are, and what to do with them (November 1883) is a lyrical lecture on the biodiversity of Creation, and typical of his teaching. His daughter Annie Croall (1854–1927) also made a significant contribution in Stirling. After finding a baby abandoned on the Back Walk, she opened a house for homeless women and then the Stirling Children's Home. Her story is recounted in Fifty Years on a Scottish Battlefield 1873-1923.
Today, it functions as a gallery, museum and cultural centre for the Stirling area. It is the repository for the historical artefacts and paintings of Stirlingshire, at the same time offering exhibition opportunities for contemporary artists. Over twenty community groups meet regularly in its lecture theatre, and a café and biodiversity garden are among its newest attractions.
Elsewhere in Scotland, museums and galleries were the responsibility of the district councils. In Stirling, the situation with the Smith was so serious, that the regional council was persuaded to enter into the partnership, providing half of the public funding package. The Joint Committee of Stirling District Council and Central Regional Council was the Smith's governing body from 1975 until the disappearance of the Regional Council in 1996, and during those years, it alone of all the Regional Councils in Scotland invested money in a local museum and gallery.
The Stirling Smith has had a chequered history of 130 years which is worth examining in detail. The founder, Thomas Stuart Smith was an artist who wanted the art gallery element of his Institute to predominate.
Smith is known primarily for founding the "Smith Institute," which is now called the Stirling Smith Museum and Art Gallery. Smith also has hundreds of paintings in public ownership.
Smudge left the People's Palace in 1990 with the departure of Elspeth King, the museum's curator. When Elspeth became director of Stirling's Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Smudge was called on again to deal with a rodent problem. Smudge died at her home in 2000 after a long illness. A plaque is now dedicated to the memory of Sister Smudge at one of the side entrances to the People's Palace.
According to the Art Journal of 1896 the Smith did “a good work of quiet, unostentatious usefulness”. It has continued to do this and often the public do not recognise the Smith's collections when they see them. They are used to illustrate many promotional brochures for Stirling and Scotland, from simple leaflets to books and the prestigious City Bid document of 2001. Images from the collection are also used in displays in visitor centres, including the Wallace Monument, throughout the area, and in the pages of national newspapers and in history books.
The Macfarlane Museum was assembled by John Macfarlane of Coneyhill, Bridge of Allan (1785–1868) whose wealth was derived from textile manufacture in Manchester. He was the great local champion of the principle of the free library in Stirling where he opened a library and reading room in 1854. In 1881 the Macfarlane Free Library was transferred to the Smith along with the Macfarlane Museum which contained many important local objects and the Smith curator was charged with the additional task of looking after it. The Museum Hall, Bridge of Allan was built by the Macfarlane Trustees in 1887 as a Concert Hall. The marble bust of John MacFarlane was acquired for the Smith collection in 2002.
When the Smith first opened to the public, almost equal amounts space were devoted to the gallery and museum. There was no provision for workshop or storage space and the anticipated expansion on the 2-acre (8,100m2) site did not happen. The pressing need for storage and workshop space has resulted in the loss of a third of the public area for that purpose and most of the fine art collection is at present confined to storage. The pressure for temporary exhibition space keeps Galleries 1 and 2 filled with constantly changing exhibitions, mainly by contemporary artists. The occupation of the Gallery 3, the largest exhibition space, with museum display is a temporary measure until new storage can be found and the splendour of this huge picture gallery restored to its original purpose.
It was said that ‘Smith’s munificence inaugurated what might be called a new era in the annals of the town of Stirling’. Certainly, the desire to have such a facility in the burgh was long standing. The Stirling School of Arts which was part library, part mechanics institute was formed in 1825 with the intention of building such an establishment. It started out with a small lending library in a rented room in Broad Street in November 1825. Throughout its life, it attracted lecturers of national note. Its annual soirees were demonstrations of intent. In 1854 for example, the need for ‘a lecture room, library and museum, and a public place where interesting specimens of art may be deposited’ was again reiterated and Sir Archibald Alison declared that ‘Stirling will take its place in literature, science and art, which it has long in Scottish history taken in arms’.