As a journey author, Thomas Pennant performed a pivotal function in stimulating the start of tourism in Scotland and Wales within the later 18th century and romantic interval.
Although hardly a family title, the Welsh-born naturalist, author, and antiquarian is more and more being credited for pioneering the ‘home tour’ of the British Isles and for ‘discovering’ elements of the nation beforehand unknown to outsiders, impressed by the Pacific travels of his contemporaries Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks.
Pennant’s travel books, describing his excursions of Scotland in 1769 and 1772, and of Wales between 1778 and 1785, have been important guide-books for vacationers who adopted in his footsteps.
As the primary extensively illustrated documentation of Scotland and Wales, they outlined the primary vacationer itineraries, and supplied ‘national descriptions’ of the cultural, financial, and environmental situation of each nations.
Now researchers from the University of Glasgow, the University of Wales, Trinity St David and Natural History Museum hope that individuals at the moment can observe in Pennant’s footsteps with a brand new digital version of Pennant’s Tours which can allow them to look at ‘contemporary landscapes’ by way of the eyes of a 18th century journey author.
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The excursions influenced many modern writers like Dr Johnson, James Boswell, Robert Burns, Hester Thrale, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, and Sir Walter Scott, in addition to painters like J.M.W. Turner, all of whom travelled in Pennant’s footsteps.
Although reprinted over the years, Pennant’s Tours of Scotland and Wales have by no means been correctly edited.
Now the analysis crew will present free, searchable, digital editions of those texts within the second section of their Curious Travellers mission, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The excursions might be linked to interactive maps in addition to modern drawings and work related to the excursions, many held within the National Library of Wales.
They may also embrace an version of Pennant’s earlier tour of Ireland, which remained unpublished and has by no means earlier than been printed.
Travel author Thomas Pennant (Image: Cardiff National Museum)
Speaking on the University of Glasgow’s College of Arts & Humanities ‘Stories from Glasgow’ Podcast, launched this week, the mission leaders mentioned this thrilling second section of their interdisciplinary Curious Travellers mission, now with the extra collaboration of the Natural History Museum, London.
Professor Nigel Leask, Regius Chair of English Language and Literature on the University of Glasgow mentioned: “Pennant tours Scotland twice in 1769 and 1772. He publishes different tours which are related to each other with the second tour of the Hebrides being much more ambitious and extensive.
“On this second tour, he was accompanied by a young Welsh artist, Moses Griffith, as well as by botanists, an ornithologist, and a Gaelic scholar. The artwork published in his Tours was a new sensation for readers in the 18th century.
“The two tour books are published with over 90 engraved plates which creates the first travel book of Scotland to have visual documentation. This is because Pennant believes in the visual image as a means of describing places and natural history objects and specimen.
“Because of Pennant we have this fantastic visual sense of Scotland, it is a kind of multi snapshot of Scotland in 1769 and 1772.”
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Professor Leask added: “The output of the Curious Travellers project is open access, searchable online texts of the tours. Anyone can click onto the tours and hopefully if you are in a place visited by Pennant (say Glasgow, or Bute, or the Isle of Skye) you will be able to get it on your phone, signal permitting, and you will be able to connect to what Pennant said in the 18th century.”
Curious Travellers Principal Investigator, Professor Mary-Ann Constantine, mentioned: “This new second phase of the Curious Travellers we will be working hard on editing the tours. But we also have a lot of events and exhibitions lined up that explore the themes we are interested in including natural history and indeed environmental history looking at the environmental crisis from an 18th century perspective.
“One of the great pleasures of this project, is that everybody can relate to place and most people are interested in travel. People are also very keen to walk parts of Pennant’s itineraries and we would encourage people who take some time to explore Pennant’s tours and landscapes and indeed write to us and let us know about their experiences.
“We are particularly interested in the layering of history – having the experience of walking through a contemporary landscape with an 18th century guide – to see the world through the eyes of what it is like 250 years ago and think about the extraordinary and indeed deeply tragic changes that have occurred since then. It is a measure and speed of the society of which Pennant was on the cusp.”
