by
Les May
WHEN
I was at school I studied ‘British
and European History, 1789 to 1914’. At least that is
how it was billed. But as I now realise it should have been called
‘English and European History, 1789 to
1914’. We studied the
disestablishment of the Welsh church and what was happening in
Ireland, but these were largely in the context of what Prime Minister
William Ewart Gladstone
had to say on the subject. But of the history of Scotland
during this time, I was in ignorance.
One
thing which burned itself in my memory was the events at Peterloo
in 1819. Last year we had a film, a re-enactment, meetings, speeches
and sundry exhibitions which
we ‘lefties’
dutifully trooped off to see and hear. But
until I watched an interview with Kenny
MacAskill,
the author of ‘Radical
Scotland’,
earlier this year, I knew nothing of ‘The
Scottish Rising’
of 1820 which was put down even more harshly than Peterloo. The
man in charge at the time was Henry
Dundas,
first Viscount Melville.
I
went to see the film about Peterloo with a Scottish lady who had
lived and been educated in Edinburgh.
So well has this event been wiped from history that when I asked her
about the Martyr’s
Memorial in Edinburgh,
erected some twenty years
later to commemorate those executed and transported for their part in
the rising, she knew nothing of it. Nor did her brothers.
We
seem to have a casual attitude to our history. That’s not the case
with some people who are always ready to air their grievances about
how we remember it in our buildings and statues and monuments, and go
on to demand we tear them down, effectively
airbrushing them from history.
Should we who see ourselves
as being ‘of the Left’
adopt their strident tones or should we put away the airbrush and set
about telling
the truth about historical figures, ‘warts and all’?
You
can find the story at:
the
book at:
and
some of the truth about Henry Dundas at:
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