Frederick Coles

Frederick Coles FSA Scot (1854–1929)[note 1] was an archaeologist, artist, naturalist and musician.[1][3]:xiii For many years he worked as Assistant Keeper at the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh from where he was funded to make a series of annual field archaeology expeditions to survey and draw stone circles in Scotland.[3]:7, 269

Frederick Coles

FSA Scot
Born
Frederick Rhenius Coles

1854 (1854)
Bellary, East India
Died1929 (aged 74–75)
NationalityBritish
OccupationArchaeologist, artist
Years active1873–1910
Spouse(s)
  • Mary (unknown maiden name)
  • Margaret Neilson Blacklock
ChildrenHelen, Cecil, Muriel, Herbert, John

Life
Coles and four of his children (1904)[note 2]

Frederick Rhenius Coles was born in 1854 in Bellary, East India where his parents were missionaries. He was educated in Britain from the age of six being looked after by his extended family. At one time he attended Edinburgh Academy.[1][4] In 1881 he was married to Mary and living in Tongland near Kirkcudbright. After his first wife died he married Margaret Neilson Blacklock (sister of the artist) of Kirkcudbright and they had two daughters and three sons. Coles died in 1929.[4][3]:xiii

Painting

He embarked on a career as an artist but little of his work has survived in public collections. In Kirkcudbright he was a landscape and marine painter, working between 1873 and 1889, an associate of Edward Hornel, Thomas Bromley Blacklock and the Kirkcudbright Artists' Colony. He exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in the period 1873 to 1879.[5][6] He conducted for the Kirkcudbright Musical Association and his interest in music may have influenced his son Cecil F.G Coles to become a musician.[1][5] He took an active part in the Kirkudbright Field Naturalists' Club and the Kirkubbright Fine Arts Association.[7]

Archaeology
Example of Coles' drawings: Easter Aquorthies stone circle, 1900
Coles' plan of the circle

He became interested in natural history and then field archaeology – in particular, castles, stone circles and cup markings on the stones. Eventually, he surveyed and drew over 130 stone circles and 60 castles across Scotland and from 1895 regularly published his surveys and drawings in the Proceedings of Scottish Antiquaries of Scotland – the journal of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland – producing the first detailed descriptive catalogue of stone circles in Scotland.[1][8][3]:xiii His drawings were accurate and meticulous – some are now kept at the Stewartry Museum in Kirkcudbright.[4][note 3]

His archaeological reputation led to his being invited to apply to become Assistant Keeper at the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Queen Street, Edinburgh in 1899, working under the Keeper Joseph Anderson. Until 1910 he received annual Gunning Fellowships allowing him to embark on archaeological field trips every year and eventually taking his children along with him after his second wife’s death.[note 4] His children were able help him with taking measurements.[1][4][3]:xiii, 7, 269 Coles was the first person to highlight the contrasting colour of some of the stones, caused by the differing petrology, which was then neglected again until recent years. He was also the first archaeologist to speak to local inhabitants to try to understand the histories of the circles, including those that had been damaged or destroyed in living memory.[3]:41, 175

Coles was involved in two debt scandals but was exonerated from the first. In 1911 he was dismissed from the museum after another problem over debt for which he was convicted and served a sentence in Calton Prison.[10]

Great Crowns of Stone, the 2011 RCAHMS book about the recumbent stone circles of Scotland is dedicated in memory of Coles. The author, Adam Welfare, considers Coles to be in the first rank of those investigating the Scottish stone circles, for example Tomnaverie stone circle. He says that Coles was disdainful of archaeoastronomy,[note 5] and he did not take part in speculation on the purposes of the stone circles – he restricted himself to recording their details. He was able to secure repeated awards through his diligent work and prompt publication.[3]:xiii, 29, 268–269

Gunning Fellowship publications

Notes
  1. Welfare alternatively states born 1853.[1]:xiii FSA Scot.[2]
  2. The photograph was taken by James Ritchie (Snr) (1850–1925) at Nine Stanes stone circle, near Banchory on 17 September 1904. From left to right: Cecil (aged 16), Muriel (15), Frederick (with beard), Helen (20, seated), John (12, extreme right). Three workmen in centre. Coles' son Herbert (13) is not present.[3]:268
  3. The Stewartry Museum also holds his herbarium.[4]
  4. "Gunning Fellowship" is the term informally used for an annual bursary instituted by Robert Halliday Gunning to "enable experts to visit other museums, collections, or materials of archaeological science at home or abroad, for the purpose of special investigation and research".[9]
  5. Coles only briefly mentions the matter.[11]

References
  1. Welfare, Adam (21 December 2018). "The Indefatigable Mr. Coles: The Life and Trials of F.R. Coles: – Kirkcudbright History Society". Kirkcudbright History Society. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  2. Society of Writers to H.M. Signet (Great Britain) (1936). Hannay, Robert Kerr (ed.). The Society of Writers to His Majesty's Signet, with a List of the Members and Abstracts of the Minutes of the Society, the Commissioners and the Council and the Early History of the Scottish Signet. Society at the University Press. p. 97.
  3. Welfare, Adam (2011). Great Crowns of Stone: The Recumbent Stone Circles of Scotland. RCAHMS. ISBN 978-1-902419-55-8.
  4. Future Museum Project Partners. "Past Presidents: FR Coles". www.futuremuseum.co.uk. The Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  5. Kirkcudbright Galleries. "Artist: Frederic Rhenius Coles". Kirkcudbright Galleries. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  6. Welfare, Adam (2011). Halliday, Stratford (ed.). Great Crowns of Stone The Recumbent Stone Circles of Scotland Gazetteer and Appendices (PDF). RCAHMS. p. 552. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 December 2019. – only published online
  7. Finnegan, Diarmid A. (2015). Natural History Societies and Civic Culture in Victorian Scotland. Routledge. p. 213. ISBN 9781317315735.
  8. "Person Details Frederick R Coles". Archaeology Data Service. Archived from the original on 16 February 2020. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  9. "Gunning Jubilee Gift". Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Archived from the original on 29 October 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  10. "Studies are still valued: Archaeologist's work". Galloway News. Pressreader. 27 December 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2020. – reporting on a presentation by Adam Welfare
  11. Coles (1910), p. 168.
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