2025 Geraldine Goddard Memorial Lecture presented by Dr Josh Smith
15 November 2025
2025 Geraldine Goddard Memorial Lecture - “The Best Theological Library in Scotland”: Enlightenment and Conspiracy at the Leighton Library, 1780-1832’ – presented by Dr Josh Smith
Presentation by Dr Josh Smith, Leighton Library Volunteer Guide and lead on the writing team for the Leighton Library Undercroft. Josh was the main Leighton Library contributor in the project (under the auspices of the University of Stirling, the University of Glasgow and the Arts and Humanities Research Council) ‘Books and Borrowing: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers, 1750-1830’
Refreshments served from 10am with presentation at 10.30am in Dunblane Cathedral Hall
Revealing findings from his own doctoral research and the recently completed AHRC-funded ‘Books and Borrowing’ project (winner of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Digital Prize, 2025), Josh Smith will share about the readers, books and managers of Dunblane’s Leighton Library in the eighteenth century. After Robert Leighton’s original bequest of books in 1684, the Leighton’s trustees proactively expanded the library’s collection, acquiring many of the key texts of the Scottish Enlightenment and cultivating the library into a community resource valued by readers across Perthshire and Stirlingshire.
Using the library’s digitised borrowing records, this lecture will examine the men and women who used the library in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth century and which books they borrowed. These individuals came from a range of occupational backgrounds including church ministers, lawyers, doctors and poets, and many were at the forefront of key Enlightenment projects including the Statistical Account and the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Yet fears of the threat of international conspiracies and Revolutionary France also influenced the reading habits of Leighton members in this period. This talk will examine these anxieties and observe how the Leighton Library succeeded in shaping the intellectual culture of the local community during a period of revolution and reform.
This is the second annual lecture, commemorating the kind bequest of Geraldine Goddard. With her generosity, the recent Leighton Library Restoration was able to be started. The fabric of the building had been in need of restoration for some time. As a result of Geraldine's bequest, and further grant funding from Historic and Environment Scotland and numerous other bodies and individuals, the restoration commenced just over two years ago. The summer of 2024 saw the Leighton Library reopen with record numbers of visitors.
In terms of the Leighton Library's records in the ‘Books and Borrowing: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers, 1750-1830’, the project has digitised and transcribed all of the library's late eighteenth and early nineteenth century borrowings contained across three ledgers. Overall, the Leighton data comprises 6,737 borrowing records of 809 books borrowed between the years 1780 and 1840. These books were written by 565 authors and borrowed by 306 individuals. 245 (80%) of these borrowers were male, while 61 (20%) were female, although the vast majority of borrowing records (95%) were made be men. According to the data, an average of 22 borrowings were made per borrower and each book holding was borrowed an average of 8 times. The project has also digitised the Leighton's Minute Book (1734-1822) and a fourth ledger, containing borrowings from 1725-48. Images from both may be viewed on the website.
This promises to be a really interesting event. The event is free. There will be light refreshments provided so that there will be time to mingle and chat. The Leighton Library will also be open for those who would like to revisit "Dunblane's hidden gem."