Doors Open Day and Old Aisle Cemetery Walk, Saturday 6th September 2025

This year's Doors Open Day in East Dunbartonshire is on Saturday 6th September 2025. The Society's contribution is an exhibition in the foyer of the William Patrick Library profiling significant local personalities, mostly buried in the Old Aisle Cemetery, Kirkintilloch. In connection with the exhibition, which will be on view for the following week, a guided walk around a selection of these graves will start from the cemetery's belfry at the Old Aisle Road entrance at 2.00 pm. The full programme for 2025's Doors Open Day may be downloaded here with details of the Antiquaries exhibition and walk on pages 9 and 11 respectively.

The grave of David Lawson, the founder of the transport company,
in the Old Aisle Cemetery. The business expanded in the 1920s to
include buses and 'Land Cruise' coach tours, and the Lawson brand
continues to this day as a funeral undertaker. (© I.S.Ruddock)

UPDATE: Doors Open Day and Old Aisle Cemetery Walk, Saturday 9th September 2023

The Society's exhibition on significant personalities buried in Kirkintilloch's Old Aisle Cemetery opened on Saturday morning, 9th September. This was part of its contribution to East Dunbartonshire Doors Open Day and will be available for viewing until Saturday, 16th September.

The William Patrick Library with the Doors

Open Day banner. (© I.S.Ruddock)

Part of the Antiquaries exhibition in the William

Patrick Library. (© I.S.Ruddock)

In the afternoon of Doors Open Day, a guided walk was led by the Antiquaries around a selection of the graves featured in the exhibition, with the assistance of Alistair Strang, a Commonwealth War Graves Commission volunteer guide, who described the work of the Commission and gave brief biographies of some of the First and Second World War casualties buried in the cemetery. To finish off the tour, Kirkintilloch photographer and entrepreneur, Edward Z Smith, entertained the large group of participants by outlining the history of the 'Spider Bridge' which previously crossed the southern end of the Old Aisle Cemetery. This wrought iron bridge was part of a right of way from Waterside to Lenzie station, and was the result of the campaign by John Ferguson (also in the exhibition) in 1885, but was demolished in 1987 and not replaced.

The participants in the guided walk in the Old Aisle Cemetery
hearing about the history of the site and the belfry. (© I.S.Ruddock)

The group at the monument to Father James Bonnyman, the first Roman
Catholic priest appointed to Kirkintilloch for an extended period and who
was responsible for the building of St Ninian's. (© I.S.Ruddock)

Photographer Edward Z Smith, an enthusiast
for the much lamented 'Spider Bridge', giving
the story of its construction and demolition.
(© I.S.Ruddock)

Alistair Strang, representing the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission, describing its work and
the backgrounds of some of the casualties buried
in the Old Aisle Cemetery. (© I.S.Ruddock)

Doors Open Day and Old Aisle Cemetery Walk, 9th September 2023

This year's Doors Open Day in East Dunbartonshire is on Saturday 9th September 2023. The Society's contribution is an exhibition in the foyer of the William Patrick Library profiling significant personalities buried in the Old Aisle Cemetery, Kirkintilloch. In connection with the exhibition, which this year will be on view for the following week, a guided walk around a selection of these graves will start from the cemetery's belfry at the Old Aisle Road entrance at 2.00 pm. The full programme for 2023's Doors Open Day may be downloaded here with details of the Antiquaries exhibition and walk on pages 9 and 10.

 

The grave of Alexander Bain, telegraph engineer and inventor of the electric
clock, who died in 1877. He was posthumously awarded an 'Emmy' in 2016 for the
invention of line scan for image transmission and is now recognised as the 
'father of television'. (© I.S.Ruddock)

It's official! Alexander Bain is the father of television

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the United States announced today (2nd September 2015) that an Emmy has been awarded to Alexander Bain to recognise his invention of scanning and image transmission. The Emmy is the television equivalent of the Oscar and is one of the highest honours associated with this particular medium, and Kirkintilloch and District Society of Antiquaries played a part in this decision.



The Emmy 
(© National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences).

Alexander Bain (1810-77) was born in Watten, Caithness and died in poverty in Broomhill Home, Kirkintilloch. For a few years he was a successful entrepreneur and business man, and although his achievements include the invention of the electric clock and important contributions to the electric telegraph, he is now known worldwide as the inventor of the fax machine. This early form of image transmission combined elements of electric clocks and telegraphs but the breakthrough was the concept of dissecting an image, sending it as a varying electric current in a wire, and then reversing the process to reassemble the image. It was the first time that an image was ever transmitted from one location to another and is the basis of the process used later by the developers of mechanical and electronic television. The link with the fundamentals of television was explored by Ivan Ruddock in "Alexander Bain: The Real Father of Television?" published in the Summer 2012 issue of Scottish Local History.

Alexander Bain in 1876 (© IET).

Alexander Bain's headstone in Kirkintilloch's Old Ailse Cemetery.

Ivan Ruddock