Published: Friday, 1st September, 2006 13:11
Reading all about it
By Hannah Jefferson
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INNERLEITHEN’S ancient print works are turning over an old leaf this summer.
The National Trust for Scotland bought Smail’s business over twenty years ago but piles of inherited documents dating back to the 1850s have not been touched until now.
Finally four volunteer archivists have started work on the mammoth project of cataloguing the hundreds of historical papers.
Property Manager Gen Harrison told the Peeblesshire News: “Three generations of Smails were all of the opinion that it was unwise to throw anything away.
“When visitors enter the original office they are surrounded by pile upon pile of ledgers and brown paper parcels holding the business records for the once thriving Borders business.
“We are often asked what they contain.
“Following our appeal for a group of volunteers we will be able to answer the question.”
The huge volume of bundles not only hold business records from years in the printing business but also documents from a time when Smails arranged shipping travel for locals who wanted to emigrate from the Peeblesshire town.
25 years of Innerleithen’s newspaper the St Ronan’s standard, later incorporated into the Peeblesshire News, will also be unearthed.
And a collection of early photos taken by Robert Cowan Smail are in among the other treasures.
Jane Gaze who works at the printing museum added: “It’s such a vast project we can’t really estimate how long it will take there are such a huge volume of papers.”
But once the cataloguing project is finally finished it will be a valuable archive for the Trust as well as for locals and visitors wanting to find out more about the areas history or even their own family’s genealogy.
There are still opportunities for volunteers to get involved with the on-going work at the shop in Innerleithen.
For more information contact Gen Harrison on 01896 830206.
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