Bringing History to Life

Surgeons’ Hall Museums has welcomed a record number of visitors to the galleries this summer. From talks, art classes and online events to theatre performances and walking tours, we provide new and exciting ways for people to engage with our work.

Alongside our dedicated learning programme that engages with school, university and adult learning groups, the museum delivers around 30 public events and more than 150 walking tours a year. Each quarter we release a new season of events designed to appeal to new and existing audiences. Our programmes highlight work happening within the museum and wider College, as well as connecting with festivals and external medical and heritage professionals.

 

Blood and Guts

Our five-star walking tour, Blood and Guts: The Twists and Turns of Edinburgh Medical History, launched in 2018 and continues to be popular with visitors. It draws inspiration from the Museums’ collections and materials held in the RCSEd Library and Archives. This enables us to give a unique perspective on the history of the College and the development of medicine.

Among the items we reference is the 19th-century diary of former student Thomas Hume, personal correspondence of Sir James Young Simpson and the journals of 18th-century College Fellow John Bell. The Hume diaries offer a rare, first-hand account of being a student of Dr Robert Knox during the time of the West Port murders committed by William Burke and William Hare. It also provides a detailed account of Burke’s execution.

Sir James Young Simpson’s letters give us glimpses of his personal life as he advanced the use of anaesthesia, while the journal of John Bell enables us to trace back to the foundations of the Museums’ famous anatomical teaching collection and gives a rare insight into life around Old Surgeons Hall during this revolutionary period in medicine. The walking tours run every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm and can be booked through the Museums’ Eventbrite page.

Upcoming events

The museum established an online events programme during the COVID-19 pandemic. These popular events have been reaching audiences all over the world. Coming up, we have the next instalment of our Dissecting the Author series, where the Museums’ Human Remains Conservator, Cat Irving, will be joined by midwife and author Leah Hazard to discuss her new book, Womb.

New to our live programming for 2023 is our Lunch Time Talk series, offering bite-sized 30-minute talks during your lunch break. We have welcomed many new faces to the museum through this programme, including some of our colleagues from the wider College. The series kicked off in January 2023 with a talk from Museum Curator Louise Wilkie in memory of the late surgeon and College Fellow Caroline Doig. Among many other speakers, we have also welcomed our Museum Research Fellow Professor Ken Donaldson, who has spoken on several subjects including the Franklin Expedition, the controversial Dr Robert Knox and early research into industrial lung disease in coal miners in Scotland.

Our next Lunch Time Talk is by Museum volunteer Professor William Wallace who will discuss 'What exactly does a Pathologist do?'.  We will be hosting more Lunch Time Talks throughout the year, which will be announced with our upcoming events.

Further information

If you would like to be added to the events mailing list or have any questions about our programme, please contact Jordanna Kielty-O’Neill at j.kielty-o’neill@rcsed.ac.uk

You can view the RCSEd Archive Digital Collections at at archiveandlibrary.rcsed.ac.uk

For more information on our walking tour go to bit.ly/44iI74b. The tour is also available for private group bookings through j.kielty-oneill@rcsed.ac.uk.