Alistair Davidson has masterminded a highly successful research programme for Colinton Local History Society gaining admiration and respect from colleagues in the society and in the local history community in Edinburgh. He received a British Association for Local History Personal Achievement Award 2009 for this work. Of particular note is the way many members of the society have become active researchers under Alistair’s meticulous planning and guidance, resulting, so far, in six books on nineteenth century Colinton.

 

Like many of our members he became involved in local history after retirement. Admitting to having dropped history in favour of geography at secondary school, he took a degree at Glasgow University in English Language and Literature, became a teacher of English, and subsequently an HM Inspector of Schools in Scotland. Although he had been attending meetings of CLHS for a few years, pressures of work prevented him being an active member. However in 1991 this became possible; he has subsequently served as Chairman, and also played a valuable role in establishing the archive.

 

In common with numerous local history societies, Colinton had a few members who were interested in research, with their own ideas that tended to be ambitious and demanding both in time and skills. In the early 1990s Alistair and Dick Lewis decided to try a new coordinated style of project that they hoped would attract people who had never before dreamed of becoming involved in research. As he puts it ‘we defined our approach as asking members to contribute individual ‘bricks’ to a research ‘wall’ planned by the Society’. To encourage participation they promised that no ‘brick’ would demand more than 25 hours work over a three-month period.

 

Alistair Davidson has been a coordinator throughout, with a colleague to start with and recently working on his own. Their role was to divide the tasks into 25 hour blocks, draft a set of briefing papers for each, and draw together the final reports into a Society book. Critical to success was devising the detailed instructions. Believing it was equally important to involve people with many different levels of skill and experience, each set was written specifically for the person who would be doing the research, to guide without inhibiting personal initiative. This of course all required breaking the 25 hour rule for the coordinators!

 

The initial choice of topic was also important, as not everything would be amenable to being tackled in small pieces, and also have accessible resources for those beginning on their research careers. Colinton parish in the nineteenth century was chosen, and clear guidance provided on using census records, newspapers, minute books of local churches and other organisations.

 

After thirteen years Alistair and over sixty members of the Local History Society have produced five reports and a summary volume on nineteenth century Colinton. They draw a detailed picture of the community, and set very high standards on all counts. Without the continuity provided by Alistair’s presence this would never have been achieved. The variety of verbs applied to his contributions demonstrate how vital he has been: he advised, cajoled, supported, devised, collated, wrote, edited …