Articles about the history of The Observatory and its surrounding area.
A literary and historical overview of Perthshire, based on a 1959 article by Maurice Lindsay – there is a note about the origins of this piece at its conclusion. “Amid all the provinces of Scotland, if an intelligent stranger were asked to describe the most varied and the most beautiful, …
The story of George Forbes’ rangefinder, and the circumstances of its development, offer a fascinating insight into the evolution of military technology at the dawn of the twentieth century. By the time of the second Boer War (1899-1902), field and navel artillery had undergone a period of swift technological advance. …
What follows is George Forbes’ own account of his time as a war correspondent. He was with the Russian troops in the Caucasus in 1877 and reported from there for The Times. (Forbes built The Observatory, Pitlochry in 1906). As well as reporting, he briefly fought with the Russians, for …
From The Scots Magazine, 1 June 1899 “April brings the primrose sweet, Scatters daisies our feet.” SO sings the poet, but in the Vale of Atholl winter still lingers, though the month of April is already a week old. The trees are stretching their gaunt, naked arms towards the clear, …
The transit of venus is among the most important astronomical phenomena, as the article below, reproduced with permission from The Sunday Times June 06, 2004, explains. The choice of Forbes to play such an important role in the observations of 1874 give some idea of the regard in which he …
In 1966 the Corries made this video, I think for W Gordon Smith’s Hoot’nanny program on BBC Scotland. It is one of a series made for that program in which folk singers intoned in locations related to their ballads. Some have suggested that these were a forerunner of the ‘pop …
From the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (New Edition) edited by Francis H Groom and published in 1895 by William McKenzie of London This is a direct reproduction of the entry on Pitlochry, from this most remarkable six-volume reference on Scotland – possibly the most comprehensive and useful guide to Scotland …
Dame Kathryn Jane Trefusis Forbes will forever be remembered as the first director of the Women’s Air Auxiliary Force (WAFF) – the female support organisation to the Royal Air Force. She took up the post, at the organisations inauguration, in July 1939 on the eve of the outbreak of the …
George Forbes was an outstanding product of Victorian academia and industry whose contribution to electrical engineering benefits us to this day. He was also a gifted astronomer and led the British party to observe the Transit of Venus from Hawaii in 1874. He wrote and lectured widely about astronomy for …
