Flaxopolis

The Abertay Historical Society’s 71st session opens on Wednesday, September 13 with an evening lecture entitled ‘Flaxopolis: Dundee’s trade with Russia and the Baltic’ and delivered by Dr Jeremy Howard, a senior lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews.

While industrial Dundee is probably best known for its jute industry, it was the flax industry which originally drove Dundee’s transformation into a major manufacturing town and, by the early 1800s, Dundee was famed for its production of linen goods.

Dr Howard says: “If Dundee was ‘the linen centre of the United Kingdom’ in the early 19th Century, then its growth, improvement and contemporary face owed most to its import of flax from the Russian Empire.” In this lecture he will examine Dundee’s economic relationship with Russia which resulted from this trade, and explore the material changes that it engendered.

The Abertay Historical Society was formed in 1947 to promote the study of the local history in Dundee, Angus, Perthshire and Fife. Its popular public lecture series, which began 70 years ago this autumn, has always been a key plank in its activities.

This lecture is free to members. Nonmembers may attend, but are requested to consider making a small donation to the society. The lecture will take place at 6.30pm in Lecture Theatre 2, the Dalhousie Building, University of Dundee.