The Scottish Records Association’s Annual Conference will be held in the Muniments Room at Cherry Park, the eighteenth-century estates offices at Inveraray Castle, on Friday 19 September. The conference will feature formal conference papers in the morning followed by lunch and a guided tour of Inveraray Jail in the afternoon. The focus of the day is prison records and their use in historical research, reflecting current research using prison records, the type and format of the records themselves, and the development, management and custody of these collections.

The Scottish Records Association (SRA: https://www.scottishrecordsassociation.org/) was founded in 1977 (Scottish Charity number SC008896) and is concerned with the preservation and use of historical records in Scotland. It provides a forum for users, owners and custodians of records to discuss matters relating to the records, their custody and conservation and research.

Programme

11:00 Registration and refreshments

11:20 Welcome and housekeeping

11:25 Chair's introduction

11:30 Dr Dee Hoole, retired academic from the History Department, University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen prison records: nineteenth-century ‘curriculums of crime’

11:55 Jessica Evershed, Outreach and Learning Archivist, and Emma Filshie, Digital Services Archivist, National Records of Scotland
Reluctant portraits: Accessing Victorian prisoner photographs

12:20 Laura Beattie, Caroline Milligan and Mark Mulhern, introduced by Caroline Milligan, RESP Project, University of Edinburgh
Outreach Goes Inside – Heritage Collections and the Scottish Prisons Learning Programme

12:45 Q&A

13:15 Lunch: a sandwich and traybake lunch is available (£7.50 per person: pre-booking essential).

14:30 Guided tour of Inveraray Jail (£12.50 per person: pre-booking essential).

Conference timings permit travel to and from Inveraray by public transport on Friday 19 September, using Scottish Citylink service buses from Glasgow. Free parking is available at Cherry Park for those travelling by car.

Conference fee: SRA members and guests, £2.50 per person; Non-members, £5.00 per person.

Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 September are Doors Open days in Argyll and Bute. For further information on historic sites open to visitors, see: https://www.doorsopendays.org.uk/regions/argyll-bute

To make a booking for the conference, please use the attached booking form (below). Numbers are limited so please book early.

Closing date for bookings: 12 September 2025