The Highland Society of London is a charity registered in England and Wales, with "the view of establishing and supporting schools in the Highlands and in the Northern parts of Great Britain, for relieving distressed Highlanders at a distance from their native homes, for preserving the antiquities and rescuing from oblivion the valuable remains of Celtic literature, and for promoting the improvement and general welfare of the Northern parts of Great Britain". [1]
Highland Society of London Act 1816 | |
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Act of Parliament | |
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Long title | An Act for the Incorporation of The Highland Society of London; for the better Management of the Funds of the Society; and for rendering its Exertions more extensive and beneficial to the Public. |
Citation | 56 Geo. 3. c. xx |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 21 May 1816 |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
Highland Society of London Act 1831 | |
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Act of Parliament | |
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Long title | An Act for repealing, altering, enlarging, and amending certain Provisions of an Act passed in the Fifty-sixth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Third, intituled "An Act for the Incorporation of the Highland Society of London, for the better Management of the Funds of the Society, and for rendering its Exertions more extensive and beneficial to the Public." |
Citation | 1 & 2 Will. 4. c. xlvii |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 23 August 1831 |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The society was founded in 1778 by Highland gentlemen resident in London and was incorporated by an act of Parliament, the Highland Society of London Act 1816 (56 Geo. 3. c. xx) on 21 May 1816.
Within a year of its foundation, its members had come to include a number of notable Scots: [2]
The Presidents over the first 25 years of the Society's existence were: [2]
In 1782, the Society was instrumental in securing the repeal of the Dress Act 1746, the statutory proscription of Highland Dress, introduced after the Jacobite rising of 1745. It has a well known and definitive collection of clan tartans established in the early 19th century. In its early days it was active in the investigations into the authenticity of the poems supposedly by Ossian, which it had also helped to publish.
The Society supports and awards annual prizes for piping, including gold medals at the Northern Meeting and Argyllshire Gathering. Its early records are deposited in the National Library of Scotland. [3]
In 2017, the Society established the Highland Book Prize in collaboration with Moniack Mhor. Open to fiction, non-fiction and poetry, the prize "celebrates the finest published work that recognises the rich talent, landscape, and cultural diversity of the Scottish Highlands". [4]
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2019 prize was jointly awarded to all four shortlisted authors "equally as a collective, as a celebration of life, literature and community". [5]
Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) |
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2024 | Night Train to Odesa | Jen Stout | Winner | [6] |
Birds Humans Machines Dolphins | Genevieve Carver | Shortlist | [7] | |
Gliff | Ali Smith | |||
Women of the Hebrides / Ban-eileanaich Innse Gall | Joni Buchanan | |||
2023 | Sea Bean | Sally Huband | Winner | [8] |
Columba's Bones | David Greig | Shortlist | [9] | |
Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time | Kapka Kassabova | |||
Nothing Left to Fear from Hell | Alan Warner | |||
Wild Air: In Search of Birdsong | James Macdonald Lockhart | |||
2022 | Crann-Fìge/ Fig Tree | Duncan Gillies | Winner | [10] |
Companion Piece | Ali Smith | Shortlist | [11] | |
Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer | Tony Davidson | |||
WAH! Things I Never Told My Mother | Cynthia Rogerson | |||
2021 | The Stone Age | Jen Hadfield | Winner | [12] |
Slaves and Highlanders | David Alston | Shortlist | [13] | |
Islands of Abandonment | Cal Flyn | |||
In a Veil of Mist | Donald S. Murray | |||
2020 | The Changing Outer Hebrides: Galson and the Meaning of Place | Frank Rennie | Winner | [14] |
The Nature of Summer | Jim Crumley | Shortlist | [15] | |
To The Lake: A Journey of War and Peace | Kapka Kassabova | |||
Summer | Ali Smith | |||
2019 | The Frayed Atlantic Edge: A Historian’s Journey from Shetland to the Channel | David Gange | Winner | [16] |
Surfacing | Kathleen Jamie | |||
Spring | Ali Smith | |||
Moder Dy | Roseanne Watt | |||
2018 | Now We Shall Be Entirely Free | Andrew Miller | Winner | [17] |
The Assynt Crofter: Allan MacRae, A Life | Judith Ross Napier | Shortlist | [18] | |
The Last Wilderness: A Journey Into Silence | Neil Ansell | |||
The Valley at the Centre of the World | Malachy Tallack | |||
2017 | Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe | Kapka Kassabova | Winner | [19] |
The Finest Road in the World | James Miller | Shortlist | [20] | |
The Angel in the Stone | R.L. McKinney | |||
The Potter's Tale: A Colonsay Life | Dion Alexander | |||