Robert Porteous - A Scotsman in Poland
Our Head of the Centre for History, Prof David Worthington, had the privilege of giving the opening lecture on Friday 18 November at the relaunch of a touring exhibition on the life of Scottish-born merchant Robert Porteous (d.1661), who made his fortune in Krosno in Poland, trading in Hungarian Tokaj wine. The exhibition is a collaboration involving the Jagellonian University in Krakow, the Portius Association in Krosno and the Polish Consulate in Edinburgh and is currently hosted by the University of Glasgow Library with the support of Prof Anselm Heinrich of the University of Glasgow. Prof Worthington was a text adviser for the exhibition, which visited Inverness, Aberdeen and Edinburgh back in 2019, and we are thrilled to see the tour continue now in the wake of the Covid disruption.
Community Engagement
We were fortunate to gather feedback from the attendees at the events, as the comments recognised the contribution of Prof Worthington and his fellow academics involved. Attendees at the Glasgow launch commented that the contribution of an historian had been vital since they ‘are able to verify certain facts and add so much knowledge to any event’, with another adding that such contributions to exhibitions were ‘extremely’ important in order to ‘help avoid egregious errors’ in the presentation.
Robert Porteous de Lanxeth, d.1661
Most importantly, however, the comments also highlighted a deeper impact as one Polish respondent (from the Aberdeen event) stated that: ‘I perceive myself less as a second category person in Scotland than I did before’. This indicates the positive influence this research-informed lecture and exhibition has had, and conversely, how much more still needs to be done to highlight the two-way migration and to help build community confidence. More generally, respondents also believed the exhibition has the potential to change perceptions and attitudes ‘so that Scots can see that there was once a migration of Scots to Poland’.
Further Research and Study
Prof Worthington has a longstanding interest in the history of Polish-Scottish relations and has published extensively on the topic. His work with the Robert Porteous exhibition has drawn from previous publications, including the article, ‘"Unfinished Work and Damaged Materials": Historians and the Scots in the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania (1569-1795)', in Immigrants & Minorities, 20(10) (2015), pp.1-19 which is available for purchase via Taylor and Francis Online and the chapter ‘The Scots in Poland in Memory and History’, in Piotr Łopatkiewicz ed., Robert Wojciech Portius de Lanxeth - krośnieński mieszczanin, kupiec i fundator (Robert Porteous de Lanxeth: Krosno Resident, Merchant and Benefactor), (Krosno, 2019), pp. 8-28.
Prof Worthington also teaches in this area, and his third-year module ‘Scots in Poland, Poles in Scotland’ will run next in Semester Two of this academic year. The module examines the links through migration and other forms of cultural contact that have connected the peoples of Scotland with those of Poland since medieval times. The module also assesses the migration of Scots to the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania in late medieval and early modern times, alongside the waves of Polish migration to Scotland since the nineteenth century.