Camphor,Cabbage Leaves and Vaccination: The Career of Johnie ‘Notions’ Williamson,of Hamnavoe,Eshaness,Shetland

Brand J . A new description of Orkney, Shetland, Pightland-Firth and Caithness Edinburgh: 1703, 72–3.

Brand84–5.

Brand72.

Shetland Archives (SA), CH.2/1071/1 p.24.

SA, CH.2/1078/1, folio 51v.

Brand72.

Rev. Jack William . minister of Northmavine, in D.J. Withrington and I.R Grant eds., The statistical account of Scotland vol. xix, Orkney and Shetland (OSA), Wakefield: 1978, 469.

SA, CH2/1071/1, pp.29–30.

Low G . A tour through the islands of Orkney and Shetland [in 1774] Kirkwall: 1879, 175.

SA, CH.2/1071/1, p.29.

SA, CH.2/1078/1, folio 51v.

Personal communication from Mary Helen Odie who kindly shared with me her research, and that of the late Robert Johnson, on John Williamson's descendants.

It is even worth asking if Andrew Williamson was a Shetlander.

Edmondston A . A view of the ancient and present state of the Shetland islands, ii Edinburgh: 1809, 85. This is the most famous statement about Shetland smallpox, and it is a pity there is no contemporary reference to the event. David Thomson referred to it in 1797 (OSA, p.521,) without specifying a year.

Andrew Bruce of Urie, cited in Low175.

Flinn M . Scottish population history from the 17th century to the 1930s Cambridge: 1977, 216–17.

Rev. William Jack in OSA, pp.468–9n.

SA, GD.150/[2566B/129].

SA, CH.2/1072/12, pp.203–4, 206.

Andrew Bruce in Low175.

Spence GW . The history of smallpox in Shetland. Shetland Advertiser 19 January 1863.

Gardie Papers, Bressay: no.838.

The original document is not known to exist. The passage above is extracted in the Printed State of Proof, etc for Arthur Gifford, Esq. of Busta against Arthur Gifford, purser, RN., 1833: copy in SA, D.1/136/2/1.

SA, D.11/193, pp.238, 273.

SA, CH.2/286/2 pp.6, 28, 40.

Smith JR . The speckled monster: smallpox in England, 1670–1970, with particular reference to Essex Chelmsford: 1987, 30.

Smith32–3.

Liddell, minister of Orkney, in OSA p.156.

SA, GD.144/92/12, GD.144/237154, D.6/131/9/5.

SA, GD.144/141/41.

Edmondston86.

Andrew Bruce in Low175.

Cowie R . Shetland descriptive and historical Edinburgh and Glasgow: 1874, 76.

Goudie G . The diary of the Reverend John Mill Edinburgh: Scottish History Society; 1889, 24.

SA, D.8/82/5.

Edmondston 87. Arthur Edmondston does not say, in so many words, that his father was the pioneer inoculator. Given the scarcity of surgeons in Shetland at the time, however, it is difficult to imagine who else he meant.

Arthur Edmondston made this connection: Edmondston86.

Edmondston87.

Patrick Barclay in OSA, p.389.

David Thomson in OSA, pp.521–2.

Smout TC . A history of the Scottish people, 1560–1830 London: 1972, 255.

Wills J . Quilk is a desert place New Shetlander no. 93, 1970; 24.

SA, D.8/232.

William Mitchell in OSA, p.480.

James Gordon in OSA, p.552.

Dishington in OSA, p.543.

Low141.

Edmondston 87, and Barclay and Dishington in OSA, pp.389 and 542, state that there were native practitioners.

Cowie75.

Dishington in OSA, p.543.

His grandson, who lived in Yell from the 1820s, was (and is) also called ‘Notions’ (SA, D.23/154/612: I am grateful to John Ballantyne for this reference).

SA, D. 1/259/15 (unpaginated).

SA, D.1/261 p.122.

Dishington in OSA, p.543.

Transcribed in Thomson WPL, ed. The making of modern Orkney Aberdeen: 1995, 17–19.

I owe this point to Derrick Baxby.

SA, TA125, tape-recording of Rosabell Blance, 17 July 1960.

WPL Thomson makes this point in ‘Population and depopulation', in Withrington DJ, ed., Shetland and the outside world 1469–1969 Oxford: 1983, 155.

Smith, Speckled Monster. passim.

Baxby D . Jenner's smallpox vaccine London: 1981, 36. ‘Indeed,’ says William Buchan (Domestic medicine or a treatise on the cure and prevention of diseases [1786], Manchester: 1822, 239), ‘if fresh matter be applied long enough to the skin, there is no occasion for any wound at all.’

Edmondston87.

A point made by R Mitchison in Flinn292.

As G. Risse says ‘the hazards of acquiring a serious case of smallpox for a healthy individual and even starting an epidemic must have been significant deterrents for the wider employment of inoculation’ (Medicine in the age of enlightenment in Wear A ed, Medicine in society Cambridge: 1992, 189).

SA, D. 1/259/15 (unpaginated) and D.7/43/1.

A point made by T.C. Smout in a review of Smith HD. Shetland life and trade (1984), in Northem Scotland, vii, 1986, 79.

SA, D.1/261 p.l22.

SA, SC. 12/6/1791/50. I am grateful to John Ballantyne for this reference.

Now in Shetland Museum

Graham J . John Williamson - pioneer inoculator New Shetlander no. 47, 1958; 15.

Edmondston90.

Spence2–3.

Spence3.

SA, Minutes of Dunrossness, Sandwick and Cunningsburgh Parochial Board, CO.6/5/30, minute of 30 August1863.

Letter by Einar Seim to John Mooney, 23 February 1936, Orkney Archives, /[D.49/216]. Cf. note 77, infra.

Spence3.

I can only trace one: SA, SC.12/6/1867/31.

Cowie 75–6. There were exceptions. In 1883 the registrar of Foula wrote as follows to a prominent anti-vaccinator ‘The parish doctor visits us every two years to vaccinate the children, and many of the parents refuse to permit the operation, because we have seen so much damage done to children through vaccination. Many of the children are being destroyed with skin eruptions, and instead of being healthy as formerly, are now sickly and yellow, and some have never had a day's health, and all through vaccination': North-Western Gazette 7 June 1884, 5. I am grateful to Logie Barrow for this reference.

SA, CO.7/5/1922, p.34.

Steele WR . Local authority involvement in housing and health in Shetland c. 1900–1950, unpub. M.Phil. thesis, University of Strathclyde: 1992, 74.

For twentieth century adult Shetlanders’ attitudes to children see Thompson P. Living the fishing London: 1983, 336–40.

Samuel Hibbert proposed such a monument 175 years ago: A description of the Shetland Islands Edinburgh: 1822, 532.