When the Scottish men faced the Canadian women in 1903

When I first read that the Scottish curlers who visited parts of Canada and the United States in the winter of 1902-03 had come up against Canadian women's sides, and lost on three occasions, I was intrigued! I set out to find out more.

I wondered at first if any of the Scottish men had ever shared curling ice with women before. At the beginning of the twentieth century, as I've discussed here and here, curling in Scotland was male dominated, and only one of the twenty-four men came from a club with female members, as far as I can see from the club membership returns in the Royal Caledonian Curling Club Annual for 1902-03.

In 1902, very few of Scotland's 619 curling clubs listed women among their membership, although five were ladies-only clubs. William Henderson was a member of the Kinnochtry CC, which had two 'extraordinary members' in Miss M Lyburn and Miss Henderson, so it is possible that he had played alongside, or against, these women before he gained his place on the touring team.

Three other members of the team, Provost D R Gordon and Dr Robert Kirk, from Bathgate CC, and Major Scott Davidson, of Hercules CC, would have been well aware of the associated women's clubs, Boghead Ladies' CC and Hercules Ladies' CC. Indeed, Dr Kirk's wife, Violet, had been secretary and treasurer of Boghead Ladies' when that club was admitted to the Royal Club in 1897, and in 1902 was the club's President. One has to wonder whether curling was much talked about in the Kirk household, and even if they had played together?

According to the Reverend John Kerr, the Team's captain who compiled the record of the tour (Curling in Canada and the United States, published in 1904), the first encounter with Canadian women had not been a scheduled match. He says, "When it became known that there were many keen curlers among the Quebec ladies who were anxious to have a game with the Scottish curlers, it was arranged that two rinks of the bachelors should be told to play the ladies, the married contingent being strongly desirous that the ladies should score a victory. In this they were not disappointed, for while the bachelors had a tie in one rink - Mr Bramwell v Miss Scott - they lost by 9 shots in the other, on which Miss Brodie skipped against Mr Prain."

These games took place on Thursday, January 8, 1903. The two Scottish skips were Robert Bramwell of the Upper Nithsdale CC, and Henry Prain of Castle Huntly CC. The names of the other players are not given. The membership of the Quebec Ladies' CC is first listed in the Royal Club Annual of 1905-06. At that time the club had 39 members. A Miss R R Scott was on the Council of Management then, and a Miss Brodie was the club's treasurer. Were these the women who skipped against the Scottish men in 1903? More research is required to find out about these pioneering women curlers.

There is a sense that Kerr considered the games with the women 'a bit of a joke'. He himself did not take part, and goes on to say, "Apart from the point of gallantry the result was not to be wondered at, for here and elsewhere in Canada, the ladies play the game with small iron stones about half the size and weight of the irons used by the gentlemen, in the use of which, by long practice, they are past masters, while the Scotsmen were considerably at sea at what might be regarded as a ping-pong form of curling."

In 1903, the use of the phrase 'a ping-pong form of curling' seems derogatory today, but Kerr goes on to write, "It was most refreshing to see the dexterity of the lady curlers, and the enthusiastic way in which they entered into the game, their sweeping being quite a lesson to everyone."

There are no photographs in Kerr's book of the actual match, but this image, 'Lady Curlers, Quebec', accompanies the report of the games against the women. Unfortunately, there is no indication of where it was taken, who took it, or who the players are. It looks to be in a two-sheeter rink. Whatever its provenance, this photo is certainly one of the earliest to show Canadian women curlers playing curling, and the small iron stones are evident. I wonder if the original image, which would be much clearer, has been preserved anywhere?

On his return to Scotland, Bathgate's Provost Gordon published a little booklet entitled 'With the Curlers in Canada', to raise money for a fund to build a United Free Church in Bathgate. Gordon gives more information than Kerr about these games against the ladies.

In describing the Team's visit to Quebec he says, "Here we were invited to engage in a match with the ladies - two rinks a side. There were heard the usual voices who counselled that no match should be played for fear the colours of the team would be lowered. Some thought that the Scottish tartan had been very severely torn up to that date, and any further discomfiture in that direction would not greatly matter.

The prevailing opinion was that eight bachelors should be sent out to meet the lady curlers. I had the honour of leading the ice in one of the rinks. The conditions were that we should adopt the small curling irons, which resemble a toy tea kettle, beautifully turned on concave bottoms. They weigh about 18 or 20 lbs. The ladies could play them most accurately and it required all the balance and skill of the gentlemen to hold their own with the ladies.

The rinks were surrounded by all the youth and beauty of Quebec, who enjoyed the novel spectacle of big brawny Scots in knickerbockers and tam o' shanters contesting for all they were worth for supremacy. As you know, victory rested with the ladies, who well deserved it. But let me tell you that the fair veterans of the curling rink were cheered and encouraged by every one on playing an excellent shot, and that the Scottish Team did everything possible to render the play of the ladies successful. Every one was more delighted than another with their victory. Like a vanquished general who hands over his sword to the conqueror. I handed over my curling besom or cowe to the skip of the ladies' rink to be hung in her boudoir with a Gordon tartan ribbon tied round it, in token of surrender and as a remembrance of the historic meeting between the sons of the Thistle and the daughters of the glorious Maple leaf."

So, Provost D R Gordon played against the Quebec sides. I wonder who it was amongst the Canadian women who went home with a Scottish curling broom, and if it ever did hang 'in her boudoir'!

At this point, I should say that although the 1902-03 Tour is now considered a great success on a wide variety of fronts, at the time Scots curlers at home, perhaps expecting too much of the travelling team and being ignorant of how good their Canadian opposition were, had a different reaction. Gordon's comments confirm that the Team knew that disappointing results until that point on the Tour were not being well received back in Scotland. And that Team members had discussed the public relations consequences of playing against the women, win or lose.

And newspapers in Scotland did see this first defeat by the women as extremely newsworthy.

The Dundee newspapers were receiving results and reports from a member of the touring team (Henry Prain). In this report printed in the Dundee Evening Post on January 9, Prain leads with the matches against the Victoria Club and the Quebec Club. Mention of the games against the women, in which he was on the losing side, comes at the end. The sub-editor saw that this result was the one for the headline! (The scores given here differ from those later recorded by Kerr in Curling in Canada and the United States, and appear to be wrong. As noted above, one of the games finished as a tie, whereas Prain's side lost by nine shots.)

The Dundee Courier of Saturday, January 10, sought to excuse poor results in Canada on the basis that the tourists would have been 'a little rusty', because of the mild winters of previous years. The defeat by the women did not go unnoticed. The unnamed writer of this article says, "Their crowning humiliation has just occurred in the shape of a defeat at the hands of lady curlers in Canada. The Scotsmen may, of course, have been overpowered by chivalry or nervousness."

So, some at home even saw the defeat by the women as a 'humiliation'

It seems that curlers in Alloa were so dismayed by results from Canada that they contacted the Royal Club Secretary to make him aware of their feelings. Whether it was news of the defeat by the women that had prompted this we can only speculate! This letter to Davidson Smith may well have been 'tongue in cheek'. But it was taken seriously when it appeared in print, and newspapers in England picked up on the story, perhaps somewhat mischievously, there being no English curlers among the touring party.

A Scotsman reader also sought to find excuses for the team's losses against the women. In a Letter to the Editor printed in the January 23rd issue and dated the day before, 'JLM' writes, "In your issue of 11th inst it was announced that a match had taken place between the Scottish bachelors and the Quebec ladies, which resulted in the defeat of the former by 4 shots. I have heard it stated that the bachelors and ladies played on equal terms, but this would not appear to be the case. I have received a letter today from one of the Scottish skips, who informs me that the match in question his team was handicapped by having to play with 'iron stones' weighing 62 lb, against irons of only 30 lb in weight used by the ladies."

January 11 was a Sunday, and the Scotsman was not published on that day. JLM is referring to the report above, from January 9. Incidentally, the Scotsman's 'Correspondent' was the Touring Team's Captain, the John Kerr. Note too that the scores printed here against the ladies are the same as those in the Dundee Evening Post, above, the women winning both games.

Anyway, JLM's compaint is nonsense. It is inconceivable that irons of different sizes and weights would have been used within the same game. In any case Gordon records that the Scots played with the same small irons as the women. So does Henry Prain who is quoted by Kerr, "It is to be said in extenuation that we played with very light irons, and they present a very small mark at the distance of a full size rink." JLM had obviously misinterpreted the letter he received. The matches were indeed played on equal terms.

Incidentally, it was usual for male curlers in Quebec and Montreal to play with heavy irons (see photos here). These could weigh 60 lbs (27 kg). However, for the visit of the Scots, the Canadian men had agreed to play with granites, rather than their usual irons, in deference to the visitors. Not the women, though. Women's irons were smaller (see comment on this post here), and according to Shirley Adams weighed around 32 lbs (say 15 kg).

On Friday, January 9, the Scots travelled to Montreal. On the Saturday they received the Freedom of the city from Mayor Cochrane before all six teams played games against the Montreal Club. On the Monday, they played at Westmount against the Heather Club.

But on Tuesday, January 13, the men again faced the women. The 'Ladies' Montreal Curling Club', as it was called on its foundation in 1894, was the first all women's curling club to be formed in Canada, around the same time the first women's clubs were being formed in Scotland. It shared ice and facilities with the Montreal Curling Club, but remained quite distinct from the male club, according to One Hundred and Fifty Years of Curling 1807-1957, a history of the Royal Montreal Curling Club.

Kerr records, "On the Tuesday, three rinks skipped respectively by Messrs Henderson, McMillan, and Bramwell, played three rinks of the Montreal Ladies Club, the first named finishing 4 up, but the others being each 9 down, the skips against them being respectively Miss N Smith, Mrs Ogilvy and Miss Bond. Over 1200 spectators were said to have witnessed the match. The play of the ladies was excellent, and was much applauded by their opponents, who all agreed they could curl as well as the gentlemen."

And that was the extent of Kerr's description of the games. He did not name the team members.

Other newspapers provide more information. The Edinburgh Evening News, on receiving the results of the Montreal games, could not resist the subheading 'Beaten again by the Ladies'!

Some days later more information became available to the Scottish press.

By Wednesday, January 28, the news desk of the Dundee Evening Telegraph had apparently received copies of Canadian newspapers and had decided to reprint the Montreal results, as above, showing the team lineups, as well as the Canadian headlines:

Noo They'll No Craw Sae Crouse

The Scottish Carles lickit by the Montreal Leddies yesterday

The Dundee Evening Telegraph noted that the Canadian paper article had been written 'evidently by a son of Scotia'!  

I see that Robert Bramwell, from the Upper Nithsdale CC, who had skipped in a tied game against the Quebec Ladies, was soundly beaten in Montreal. The other losing skip was Thomas Macmillan of Glencairn CC. William Henderson of Kinnochtry CC skipped his team to a win. Henry Prain, who had lost in Quebec, seems not to have ventured onto the ice against the Montreal women! But Provost Gordon did, and was once again on the losing side.

Gordon did not have so much to say about this second defeat. In With the Curlers in Canada he records the games against the ladies of the Montreal Club, "Some members of our team engaged the ladies in a curling match. Afterwards a brilliant reception was held in honour of the event. As in the game at Quebec our team suffered defeat at the hands of fine lady curlers, who were experts and enthusiastic players. That game was also played with the small irons.

Many people have laughed at the victory of the lady curlers, and some have tried to find the reason for the result. Those who have felt the influence of the ladies most will readily believe that their charm, aided by their great skill, accounted for the defeat of the Scotsmen."

There is yet another match against the Canadian women that must be documented.

In recording the events of Thursday, January 15, when the Scottish Team were guests of the Montreal Thistle Club, Kerr says in his book, "While the games with the Thistle were going on, two rinks of the team, skipped by Captain Simpson and Mr Bentley Murray, played against two rinks of the St Lawrence Ladies' Club and spent a delightful afternoon." Captain Simpson was James Simpson, the laird of Mawcarse, who had been an officer with the Fife and Forfar Imperial Yeomanry. He was a member of Orwell CC.  D. Bentley Murray of Airthrey Castle CC was the youngest of the Scots on tour, at 29 years of age.

Kerr goes on to talk about the decoration of the rink, the food, the souvenir pins, what the ladies were wearing, the enthusiastic spectators, and those who attended the after-game reception. Only after two pages of the above does he mention who won, writing, " ... the match, which like those with the Quebec and Montreal clubs, was in favour of the fair sex." He does not record the scores. And Provost Gordon makes no mention of these games in his booklet.

However, the scores can be found in the Scotsman of February 2, 1903, in a long article summarising the Team's time in this part of Canada. This says, "The ladies' club in connection with the St Lawrence Club defeated the Scottish curlers, two rinks a side this afternoon by 27 shots to 14." 

That wasn't all though. Almost in passing Kerr mentions that the match against the ladies had "given delight to the visiting Scotsmen" and as a consequence a further match was arranged on the Friday, "the rinks on this occasion being mixed - two ladies and two gentlemen on each." No names, no scores, but Kerr thinks it important to record, "Tea was afterwards served by Mrs Roy, Mrs Guthrie and Miss Brophy."

Curling historians, and those who followed the recent World Mixed Curling Championship in Kazan, Russia, may well wonder if this passing reference to a game with two men and two women on each side, is indeed to the first recorded mention of an international mixed curling match! 

This photo of the 'Officers of the St Lawrence Ladies' Club, 1902-03', appears beside the written report of the day. The wonderful thing is that this (posed) studio photograph does have the names of those in the group, although the source is not identified. Back row, left - right, Mrs Hodgson, Mrs E A Reipert (secretary), Mrs J Y Roy (Vice-president), Miss Mitchell, Miss Robertson. Middle row: Mrs J F Reipert, Mrs W L Chipchase (President), Mrs Wm Cairns. Front: Mrs Spencer and Miss Milne.

It would be interesting to have confirmed which, if any, of these ladies played against the Scotsmen.

Note that the two irons shown in this studio photograph are the larger men's irons, not those usually thrown by the women.

One other image from Curling in Canada and the United States might help. I believe it is captioned inadequately as it says, 'Rink from Montreal with Scoto-Canadian rink'. It is taken at the door to the Montreal Thistle Club, not the Montreal Club, so perhaps shows some of the St Lawrence ladies who played against the men, perhaps even in one of the mixed games! Its positioning in the book, alongside the report of the St Lawrence games, would support this.

Those with a forensic bent might like to closely examine the photo and compare it with the one above to see if any faces match.

On the evening of Thursday, January 15, two Scottish teams, with the tour captain John Kerr, went to Lachine. There they mixed up the teams with the local curlers 'so as to make it as sociable as possible'. These games were even played with irons.  

There is no mention of any involvement of women curlers at Lachine, but this photo appears somewhat randomly in Kerr's book, on page 231, entitled 'Officers and Skips, Lachine Ladies Club, 1903'. Note the little irons on this occasion. There's a photo credit with this image to Notman and Son. This famous photographic studio is described here. The Notman photographic archives can today be found in the McCord Museum in Montreal. The above image is online here, much clearer than that scanned from Kerr's book. It is described as 'Lachine Ladies curling team, Montreal, QC, 1903'.

The Scottish Team went on to tour Ontario, and travelled as far west as Winnipeg, before heading home via Minneapolis, Chicago, Utica and New York.

The Team was feted on their return to Scotland, and of course that first Royal Caledonian Curling Club visit to North America set a precedent for future goodwill tours that continue to this day.

One further story, which shows that the defeats of the Scots by the Canadian women remained in the mind, can be found a year later, in an extensive report in the Falkirk Herald on January 23, 1904, of a Masonic dinner. One of the guests was Dr Robert Kirk, mentioned earlier, his wife being a keen curler in Bathgate. Kirk had been the Team's doctor in North America. He gave a speech, outlining many of the differences that existed in play there, compared with Scotland. He praised the standard of play of their hosts, and the hospitality the Scots had received. He mentioned the ice conditions, saying, "The ice bothered them at first when they first went to Canada. They were not accustomed in Scotland to playing on ice as level as a billiard table, as that was the kind of ice they had in Canada."

Then, "As to the defeat of the Scottish curlers by the Canadian lady curlers, he had to say for the benefit of those present that no married men played against the ladies - (laughter) - and that had perhaps a great deal to do with the result of the game. The ladies and gentlemen played on that occasion with the same size of curling irons - they did not play with curling stones - and those irons were like small goblets. The ladies played a beautiful game, and before the gentlemen got hold of the ice, the ladies had the game won."

A married man, Dr Kirk did not himself face the women on the ice.

Dr Kirk concluded his speech with this anecdote, "A Quebec gentleman whom he met on the ice said to him - 'What on earth tempted you to try conclusions with the ladies? We would think twice about doing so, and we have played with the irons all the time.' (Laughter and applause)"

To finish on a more serious note, Provost Gordon was much taken with what he saw of Canada and its people in 1903. Before his final chapter of With the Curlers in Canada, he writes, "In Canada the status of women is better than in this country. Of course, I speak as a whole. They are given
greater and higher privileges than is the case here; they take part in many social functions, their freer life and style of living make them more natural and companionable, their frank and open manner begotten of equal privileges with man, gives them that confidence in their own powers
which places them amongst the leading women of the time."

This gives a fascinating insight into the position of women in Canada, and by contrast in Scotland, in 1903. Provost D R Gordon was a successful businessman in Bathgate as an ironmonger, seedsman and motor engineer. 

Images above are all from Curling in Canada and the United States: A record of the Scottish Team, 1902-03, and the Game in the Dominion and the Republic, to give it its full title. It was published in 1904 by Geo A Morton, 42 George Street, Edinburgh, and The Toronto News Co Ltd, Toronto.

Kerr's book is more than just a record of curling matches, and of the Tour itself. In it you can find much about the Dominion of Canada and the USA as they were in 1903, the way of life then, the economy, and much about other forms of recreation, sightseeing opportunities, and modes of transport. Indeed, 24 pages of the book are devoted just to the return voyage on the SS Lucania from New York to Liverpool.

The cartoons at the top of the post originally appeared in a Canadian newspaper, but were reprinted in the Dundee Courier, and in Kerr's book, from where they were scanned.

'With the Curlers in Canada' by D R Gordon can be downloaded from the University of Manitoba library as a pdf file here. It is a much simpler read than Kerr's detailed tome.

The newspaper clippings are © The British Library Board, or © Johnston Press plc, courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive, which continues to be the most wonderful resource for curling research.

I would be very pleased to hear from any descendants of the Canadian lady curlers mentioned in this article, and to learn any further information that might be available in Quebec and Montreal about when the visiting Scotsmen were defeated by the Canadian women!

Transporting your stones

The construction of the railways in the nineteenth century facilitated curling matches, especially those between clubs for District Medals, promoted by the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. And large bonspiels could take place, with curlers travelling by train from all over the country. The Royal Club had its own station platform beside its pond at Carsebreck to allow the Grand Matches to take place, see here. 

The image above shows part of an advert placed in the Fife Herald of Wednesday, January 20, 1886, to show players intending to take part in a bonspiel on Lindores Loch how they might reach the venue by special train. 

In the 'small print' of the advert there is the caution to players that they have the responsibility of looking after their own stones if they change trains at any point! It says, "The Company will provide the means of conveying the Curling-Stones by Railway; but they do not undertake any responsibility for their safe conveyance; and Curlers are therefore requested to look after their Curling-Stones at the respective Junctions where any change may take place, both in going and returning, as well as on arrival at, and return from, Lindores Loch."

This shows that the railway companies went to some effort to accommodate curlers travelling with their stones, and hints at the problems that might arise when a large number of players were making their way to and from a bonspiel venue.

Curlers occasionally used other means of transport to reach their match. For example, in 1895, teams from Oban travelled to Fort William by ship, see above!

How were stones transported? Were they protected in any way?

I had always assumed that boxes like this were used primarily for storage at home, or perhaps in a curling house near the pond. A box containing two stones is a heavy weight to carry on to the ice. But I've seen a couple of examples with metal runners on the bottom, turning the box into a sled, suggesting that they could have been used to slide stones over the ice itself.

But boxes containing two stones were heavy to lift, and although in theory they could be taken by train, they would have been cumbersome to manipulate, especially from train to loch. I suspect that such boxes were used primarily for summer storage.

The most common 'protection' for curling stones when travelling was wicker baskets. These examples were tall enough to enclose stones with handles still attached.

This image, from an auction some years ago, shows a variety of baskets, of different styles, all with leather straps as reinforcement, stones not being light in weight! Close examination showed considerable damage to the wicker.

The photo also shows three leather 'baskets', these to protect just the stones with handles removed.

Here is a pair of wicker baskets, just for stones, with no space for handles, that have been well looked after for more than 100 years, in all probability.

Wicker baskets succumb readily to woodworm, and that probably is the reason that so few have survived to the twenty-first century.

These leather 'containers' would protect stones, whose handles had been removed.

Here is an even simpler leather construction, really just to facilitate carrying the stones.

Handles, stone bolts and washers would have been carried separately, perhaps just in a pocket, or occasionally in a special pouch, see here.

Here is a 'top of the range' curling basket in full leather.

And here is a beautiful pair of leather baskets, designed to protect stones with handles attached. These would have been expensive items at the time. But again, so were curling stones!

Retailers of curling stones often sold accessories. This advert from an Edinburgh shop in 1907 advertises 'Baskets - either plain, or lined and strapped'. But note that an alternative was available. I wonder if any examples of the 'New Caledonian Curling Bag' have survived. These bags apparently enabled 'the stones to be carried more easily than in the baskets'! I don't know what these bags were like. Do get in touch if you know of any that have survived.

Now, how exciting is this! This is a photo of a new curling stone basket from Hastingwood Baskets in West Kilbride, Scotland, commissioned by Californian curler Alice Mansell. This is for a stone called 'Big Bertha' - a Blue Hone Ailsa Craig weighing 47 lbs.

Here's 'Big Bertha' tucked into her basket being toasted by Alice and Big Bertha's owner, Richard Lazarowich, with bourbon from nearby Sonoma County. (What? Not with Scotch whisky?)

Alice has commissioned a further two baskets from the Scottish supplier. She says, "Many Californians are starting to own their own stones to revive the outdoor curling game on our seasonal outdoor rinks in urban areas and natural ice up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  We've curled at Yosemite National Park, under Mount Shasta, near Donner Summit, and downtown San Francisco and San Jose so far.  The curling stone baskets will be well used."

Wonderful!

ADDED LATER

Alice Mansell has emailed to remind me of this photo I took when visiting the Partick Curling Club's curling house back in 2009, see here. She wonders if these could be examples of the 'New Caledonian Curling Bag' in the advert above. I think she could well be correct!

ANOTHER ADDITION

Lindsay Scotland has found this advert in the Dundee Courier from 1861, which would suggest that there was a market for curling stone baskets even at this early date. Thanks Lindsay.

I am especially grateful to Gail Munro who supplied many of the images above of baskets in her collection. Thanks Gail. And to Alice Mansell for the photos and story of sourcing her new baskets. and for reminding me of the Partick photo. (Good to know that others have better memories than I do.) The newspaper images are © The British Library Board, courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive. The Anderson and Sons advert is from a 1907-08 Royal Caledonian Curling Club Annual. Other photos are by the author.

The Muses Threnodie, and Scotland's First Curlers

"When was the sport of curling first played?" is a question that is often asked. "Sixteenth century Scotland", is probably the best response, but that answer needs qualification.

What can be said with certainty is that the sport was being played in and around the town of Perth, Scotland, at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century. We know this because the first printed references to 'curling' and 'curling stones' occur in a publication which dates from 1638, and was probably written some years before in 1620.

The publication, whose title page is shown above, is called 'The Muses Threnodie, or, Mirthful Mournings on the Death of Master Gall. Containing varietie of pleasant poeticall descriptions, morall instructions, historiall narrations, and divine observations, with the most remarkable antiquities of Scotland, especially at Perth'. The author was Henry Adamson, and it was printed at Edinburgh in King James College by George Anderson, 1638.

It comprises two poems written by Henry Adamson, occasioned by the untimely death, from tuberculosis, of a Perth merchant called James Gall. Rather than mourn Gall himself, Adamson makes George Ruthven the chief mourner. Ruthven was a respected physician and surgeon in Perth, and was 92 years old when the poems were published. Both Gall and Ruthven were real people, well known to the author of the poems.

The author, Henry Adamson, calls himself 'a student in Divine, and Humane Learning'. Born in 1581, he trained as a priest, but became a school teacher in Perth. It seems that he wrote the poems for his own amusement, not intending for them to be published, and at first resisted suggestions from friends to do so. Eventually, William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scotland's most respected poet at the time, see here, persuaded Adamson to have them printed. Indeed, a letter from Drummond, signed 'W.D.', is included as a preliminary page of 'The Muses Threnodie'. Adamson died the year after his poems were published, aged 58.

Adamson's works were reprinted in the eighteenth century, under the same title, but with the following on the title page: 'To this new edition is added explanatory notes and observations by James Cant'. Cant calls himself 'the Editor'. This two volume work was 'printed by George Johnston for the Editor and Robert Morrison, Bookseller, 1774'.

There are a number of significant differences in the two editions. I shall call the 1638 volume 'the original 1638 book', and the later book, 'Cant's 1774 edition'.

Adamson sets the scene in his first poem 'The Inventarie of the Gabions in M George, his Cabinet'. Adamson seems to have made up the word 'gabions' himself at the time (it was not used back then with the meaning that it has today). We might say 'curiosities' nowadays to explain what Adamson was describing. This is a (relatively) short piece, and can be read in full online here. Here's one passage from it:

I've highlighted where 'curling stones' are mentioned:

'His hats, his hoods, his bels, his bones,
His allay bowles, and curling stones,
The sacred games to celebrat ....'

It can be concluded from this that Georve Ruthven, the doctor, had played both bowls and curling. As noted before, if he was 92 in 1638, then his sporting days would have been when he was a younger man - and that puts the sport being played in Perth back into the sixteenth century!

Adamson's main poem 'The Muses Threnodie' itself, is in nine parts, or 'muses'. You can find all online, in a readable form, on the allpoetry.com website.

The curling reference is in the First Muse, transcribed here, from where the above is extracted.

I must admit I don't find either poem an easy read, but the device Adamson uses is to have the various 'curiosities' of George Ruthven's closet mourn for the deceased James Gall. In the passage above, golf clubs get a mention (the poems are an early reference to this sport too), as do curling stones:

'And ye, my loadstones, of Lednochian lakes,
Collected from the loughs, where watrie snakes
Do much abound, take unto you a part,
And mourn for Gall, who lov'd you with his heart'

Now, Adamson realised that his reference to 'loadstones, of Lednochian lakes' might not be understood, so in the margin of the original 1638 book, opposite to the 'loadstones' reference, is printed the two words 'Curling Stones'! In the digitised versions of the poem online this is missing in most cases.

As Gall had apparently loved his curling stones, we can assume that he also loved the sport itself. The evidence suggests then that James Gall was a curler!

In Cant's 1774 edition, the editor removes the reference to 'curling stones' from the margin, but adds an explanatory footnote:

'Lednoch is situated about four computed miles north from Perth, on the banks of the Almond River; about this place the best curling stones were found. The gentlemen of Perth, fond of this athletic winter diversion on a frozen river, sent and brought from Lednoch their curling stones.'

This fits in with what we assume about early curling, that the players obtained their stones from the beds of rivers where they had been shaped and smoothed by the action of the water. However, Cant was writing perhaps 150 years after Adamson had penned the original poems, so just how much he knew about curling and the curlers of Perth at the beginning of the seventeenth century is questionable. But the association with Lednoch does seem secure enough.

So, we have two references to curling stones in Adamson's poems, and later writers were aware of these.  In The Channel-Stane or Sweepings Frae the Rinks, First Series, published in 1883, the two references to curling stones in Adamson's poems, are described. Given that the author of the work (John MacNair) describes the original 1638 book as 'practically extinct', and that he includes the Lednoch footnote, it would seem that he had used Cant's 1774 edition as his reference.

The Reverend John Kerr in The History of Curling and Fifty Years of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, published in 1898, writes extensively about Adamson's poems. He records that James Gall died in 1620, perhaps only twenty-five years of age, and that Adamson wrote the poems in that year.

Kerr might have had access to the original 1638 book, as well as to Cant's 1774 edition. I say this as the publisher of the History of Curling has typeset the First Muse to show how the words 'Curling Stones' had been placed in the margin of the original 1638 book, as explanation of 'Loadstones of Lidnochian Lakes' (sic), above.

The two references to 'curling stones' described above appear in The Complete Curler by John Gordon Grant, published in 1914. In Beginner's Guide to Curling, by Robin Welsh, published in 1969, the author records just the 'curling stones' mentioned in Adamson's 'The Inventarie of the Gabions in M George, his Cabinet'.

But all these writers missed something very important! It took a young(ish) lecturer at Glasgow University in 1980 to have the idea of looking at the original 1638 book, of which that University had a copy in its Special Collections, and so discover another key reference. The original book actually says that James Gall was a curler! 

In a preface to his poems, Adamson has written the above about James Gall. He was 'a citizen of Perth, and a gentleman of goodly stature, and pregnant wit, much given to pastime, as golf, archery, curling, and jovial company.'

It could not be clearer that here was someone who loved his sport - both golf and curling, and enjoyed fun company. Nearly four hundred years later we probably all know friends who fit this description.

Why hadn't this obvious reference been noted sooner? I suspect that the rarity of the original volume was the reason. Cant's 1774 edition does not include the preface. This important reference to curling - the first time the sport is mentioned in print - must have been overlooked because no-one had studied the original book in detail, relying only on Cant's 1774 edition. How important it is, especially in these days when information is communicated widely online, to check back and confirm the original source material!

The whole preface which shows that James Gall was a curler, appears in this digitised version online of 'The Inventarie of the Gabions in M George, his Cabinet'. 

Two more thoughts. Why did George Ruthven have more than one curling stone in his closet? As far as we are aware, the sport was played in the sixteenth, seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century with one stone for each curler, and the earliest of these stones were 'loofies', without handles. Did Ruthven have stones for different occasions, or did he have spares, to allow friends to play?

Adamson's poems, as well as providing the earliest dated reference to curling and curling stones, give us the names of two Perth curlers - George Ruthven and James Gall. The names should be better known than they are. It is likely that the poems' author Henry Adamson played too - he certainly knew about the sport to have included the mentions described here. 

I am most grateful to the helpful staff of the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, and at the University of Glasgow Library. Both places hold copies of the original 1638 book and Cant's 1774 edition. The images from the original 1638 book are from the National Library's copy. The other images are screenshots from online digitised copies or scans from books in the author's library.