Scilla Aitchison

Victoria Hall, Cromarty

Cromarty History Society

Cromarty History Society’s January meeting will be a little different as it will be in the afternoon and we will be joined by members of Cromarty’s Fourways Club and concerns an 18th century Countess of Sutherland’s Shopping List.

The date is January 29th 2026 , time 2‐4pm at the Victoria Hall in Cromarty. There will be no charge for the meeting but there will be a donations box for the Courthouse Museum.

Speaker Scilla Aitchison’s favourite childhood spot was the library and her student holiday job was always in a library. When she graduated she was hired as a university librarian and then became an archivist in the Science Museum in London before being offered a post as a librarian in the House of Commons. When her children were young she worked from home for publishers, wrote articles and edited a history magazine. Since returning to the North she has carried out genealogical research for many of the Highland Diaspora across the globe.

The subject of her talk began when she found an unusual old map in an antique shop in Cromarty featuring her two favourite places in the Highlands which led to research in the National Library in Edinburgh and to this talk.