OFF THE SHELF: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald marriage register.
Jo Sherington, West Dunbartonshire Libraries’ Local History and Archives Lead Officer, chooses one of her favourite objects from the archives.
One of my favourite items in our archive collection is found in the Register of Marriages of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Dumbarton, pictured right.
This is the marriage registration of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald, dated 22nd August 1900, with their original signatures.
Before working with the heritage collections of West Dunbartonshire Council I had no idea of the Dumbarton and Bowling connection with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and was fascinated to discover the story.
At the time of their marriage Margaret was living at Dunglass Castle which for a short time at the end of the 19th , beginning 20thcentury was a centre of what was known as the Glasgow Style.
It was in 1893 that the artist and designer Talwin Morris had moved into the Castle and became involved in the Glasgow artistic world at the time.
Morris most famously designed book jackets and illustrations and was artistic director of the publishers Blackie & Son.
It was Morris who introduced Charles Rennie Mackintosh to his employer W.W. Blackie who was looking for an architect for his new Helensburgh home Hill House.
When Talwin Morris moved out of Dunglass the next occupants were the Macdonald family where Margaret lived with her sister Frances, both gifted and influential artists in the new Glasgow Style. Regular visitors were Charles Rennie Mackintosh and fellow artist Herbert McNair who married Frances also in St. Augustine’s in 1899.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh revisited Dunglass several times and is known to have painted flower studies there in 1906 and 1912, and when Talwin Morris died in 1911 Mackintosh designed the tombstone for his grave in Dumbarton Cemetery, pictured below.
