| Administrative History | Peter Moir Clark was born in 1834 and graduated AM at Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1854 and BA in 1858. He graduated MA at Cambridge in 1861. He later married (before 1868) and his son, Robert Moir Clark (d. 1930) was a lecturer at Aberdeen University. |
| Description | Diary of a 'long vacation' holiday in Shetland. The journal is written on 47 quarto sheets which were posted in three instalments to the author's wife at various addresses in Aberdeen or Aberdeenshire. There are in addition five loose sheets containing the final entries to the diary.
The author arrived by steamer at Kirkwall on 1 July and was joined by four friends before heading to Lerwick. Their first week was spent fishing and shooting at Loch Tingwall and the sound of Bressay before sailing to surrounding areas on board a vessel called the 'Glance', including Hamna Voe on the east coast of Shetland and the area around Mid Yell. The majority of their time was spent fishing and shooting and the author lists the number of birds shot and fish caught in the left-hand margin. They returned to Lerwick on 22 July, sailing to the island of Balta on 25 July to hunt rabbits before heading to Refirth in Mid Yell on 4 August where a description is given of their attempts at 'cockle-gathering' (pp.26-27). The author documents their experiences sailing to and from different locations around Shetland and describes the capture of a vessel from the Faroe Islands for smuggling (pp.34-35). He also provides an account of exploring caves on the island of East Burgh in search of rock-pigeons and writes about the people he has met, including Mr. Bruce of the Union Bank in Lerwick, who is mentioned at various points throughout the journal and appeared to join the group for a short time. The author notes towards the end of the journal that they took on a new pilot, Robert Christy, 'who was to Pilot us round the West Coast of Shetland and also the North & West Coast of Scotland.' |
| Copyright | Subject to the condition of the original, copies may be supplied for private research use only on receipt of a signed undertaking to comply with current copyright legislation. Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the University Archivist and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. Where possible, assistance will be given in identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material. |