The Dewar Collection
The Dewar Collection is a selection from the huge collection of books and other materials offered by Donald Dewar's family to the Scottish Parliament after his death in October 2000. The aim was to form a collection that would focus mainly on politics and Scottish history, but at the same time reflect other areas of Donald Dewar's diverse personal interests. Priority was given to ensuring that the collection would illustrate his political career and, equally importantly, have relevance to the Scottish Parliament.
The Dewar Collection is strong in the areas of Scottish history, cultural traditions, literature, and visual arts, and includes a fine selection of political biographies. The variety of books which Donald Dewar reviewed for newspapers, many of which are part of the collection, illustrates his wide range of interests and knowledge. His friends obviously knew of his interest in books and he received a large number as gifts. All those with inscriptions were kept for the collection. He also purchased a range of antiquarian books, many with fine bindings and illustrations, and marked up and kept many catalogues of antiquarian book sales. There are also books passed down through his family, including a family copy of Brown's Bible published in 1848.
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| Marion and Ian Dewar with the collection of their father's books at Holyrood |
As well as books, the Parliament has chosen to keep some more personal political memorabilia, such as the original Hansard of Donald Dewar's maiden speech in the House of Commons and a copy of the Scotland Act signed by Tony Blair. Other memorabilia in the collection include materials from various election campaigns, over 200 photographs, 35 badges, programmes of church services, Edinburgh Festival programmes, sports programmes, and official dinner menus. SPICe is seeking to add relevant material to the collection and has acquired several books of condolence signed after Donald Dewar's death.
In January-February 2002 the National Library of Scotland hosted an exhibition of items from the Dewar Collection, reflecting four main themes - Donald Dewar the person, the politician, the reader/reviewer, and the collector. National Library of Scotland press release (56.3KB pdf).
The collection is housed in the specially designed Donald Dewar Room in Queensberry House at Holyrood and is administered by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Preservation work has been carried out on the collection and items from it are on display in the Room. It has been catalogued online as part of the SPICe database which is soon to be made available electronically to members and staff of the Parliament. The Donald Dewar Collection Catalogue is also available on CD-ROM and a 16 page illustrated Guide to the Collection was published in October 2004.
The Donald Dewar Room serves mainly as a quiet study area for MSPs and is reserved for their use on Tuesdays-Thursdays. Members of the public are welcome by appointment on Mondays and Fridays. Please contact the Scottish Parliament Information Centre by:
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