In Search of a Lost Library

Research postgraduate student Mel Manwaring McKay was the 2017 winner of the Library and Information History Group (LIHG) James Ollè Award.  She travelled to Bournemouth, London and Edinburgh in 2018 to look for evidence of former Inverness MP and antiquarian book collector Charles Fraser-Mackintosh’s collections of books and papers on Highland families. 

Following in Fraser-Mackintosh’s footsteps enriched her understanding of the book collector and his wife and the contrast between the lives they led in Bournemouth, and the Highlands. Although the whereabouts of the books in Fraser-Mackintosh’s Bournemouth library remain a mystery, the research trip led to a deeper understanding of what exists of the Fraser-Mackintosh collection in Inverness Library.

Read her feature article in the LIHG Spring 2019 newsletter here.

There is more information available about the Fraser-Mackintosh collection on the Inverness Rare Books website and a pdf of the card catalogue for the Fraser-Mackintosh collection is available at High Life Highland's Special Collections.