Scotland

St Adamnán worked tirelessly to secure protection, rights and dignity for the women of Ireland.

St Adamnán was Abbot of Iona, an island on the west coast of Scotland, in the 7th century. The traditional culture of what was still in many places a pagan land had treated women as disposable property.

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The Duke of Argyll was pleasantly surprised to find one of his gardeners reading a learned book of mathematics - in Latin.

Edward Stone (1702-1768), mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society, and the man who gave us aspirin, was self-taught. His story reminds us that the purpose of education is not to tell us what to think, but to give us the tools we need to think for ourselves.

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An 18th century bon viveur and virtuoso violinist, Thomas Erskine is currently being ‘rediscovered’ by the classical music industry.

Thomas Erskine (1732-1781), 6th Earl of Kellie, was a Scottish musician and composer, who also founded a racy ‘gentleman’s club’ in Edinburgh called the Capillaire. His music has long been forgotten, and much of it is lost, but people are at last realising just how good some of it is.

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A Scottish widow’s lullaby for her fatherless child inspired his music, but Brahms’s message struck closer to home.

Johannes Brahms never came to Britain, apparently because he was so idolised here that the modest composer found every excuse to avoid it. Nonetheless his ‘Three Intermezzi’ Op. 117 were inspired by a Scottish folksong, and are a reflection on his complex relationship with Clara Schumann and her children, whom he supported financially and emotionally after Clara’s husband (and Brahms’s friend) Robert was taken from them.

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