The 17th, 18th and 19th centuries saw a growth in literacy and increasing efforts to provide the Scottish public with access to books. Perth and Kinross was at the forefront of this movement. Scotland’s first free public lending library was founded at Innerpeffray (MPK14007) in 1680 and was used by the local community until 1968. A school was also founded at Innerpeffray at the same time as the library and remained operational until 1947 (MPK1363). In 1752 a circulating library, where borrowers paid for books, opened in Perth – this was the second library of this type to be established in Scotland, and the first outside of Edinburgh (Whatley 2011). One of the key interests of the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society was the establishment of a library, admittedly just for the use of its all male membership. The 19th century saw further expansion in the provision of public libraries, partly as a result of the Public Libraries Consolidation (Scotland) Act of 1887. Greater research into the architecture and contents of the region’s historic libraries could be of value.
There was a major growth in formal education in Scotland during the post-medieval period. Interestingly, the expansion of educational opportunities was a trend which predates the 1872 legislation establishing compulsory elementary education. More than 100 schools, almost all of them post-medieval in date, are listed in the Historic Environment Record for Perth and Kinross. Nonetheless, this is almost certainly an under-representation of the number of educational establishments which once existed in the region. In particular, many smaller and older schools are at present poorly recorded. For instance, we know that in the early 19th-century Perth had ‘several boarding schools, for young ladies, of the most respectable description’ (Wood 1828, 300). However, these girls’ schools are not currently included in the Historic Environment Record. Interdisciplinary research into the location of pre-1870 schools in Perth and Kinross should be a priority. Many small schools, mostly long-abandoned, once existed in rural areas, those that survive should be recorded. More generally we need a greater understanding of who and what these small rural schools taught and if this differed, both in terms of intake and curricula, from urban schools. Greater understanding of the shifting role of the church in providing education would likewise be desirable.
The 18th and 19th centuries were arguably characterised by new attitudes to childhood. The extent to which this transition can be discerned in the material culture of Perth and Kinross is a topic which deserves further research. The experience of childhood almost certainly varied considerably between different locations and ranks in society. The range and type of objects associated with childhood which can be identified, and how these vary across time and place, are questions of considerable significance. As material evidence about childhood is often quite small-scale and fragmentary, careful recording and analysis is essential. An interdisciplinary project, involving collaboration with museums, to study artefacts possibly connected with the region’s post-medieval children might be helpful.