Rev William Matheson (1910 - 1995) served as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader in the Department of Celtic Studies from 1952 until 1980 at Edinburgh University.
A native of Sollas, North Uist, his connection with Edinburgh was a long one, for he had spent two years at Boroughmuir High School even before he came to the University in 1929. His chosen subject was History, and he graduated with Honours in 1933. Although he transferred his attention after graduation to Celtic Studies, his training as a historian remained central to his approach to scholarship, whether the evidence to be considered was written or oral, and whether the inquiry was literary or linguistic.
The Celtic Department was a lively place to be in those days, and Willie's contemporaries included two future Professors - his own brother Angus, and James Carmichael Watson. Two more fellow-students were Kitty MacLeod, who shared Willie's enthusiasm for collecting traditional Gaelic songs, and Sorley MacLean, who was studying English under Professor Grierson but had, like Willie, been drawn to the study of his native language and tradition in the robustly scholarly framework which was promoted between the Wars by the celebrated Professor W J Watson.
It was with Watson's encouragement that Willie embarked on his edition of the poems of the 18th- century Gaelic bard John MacCodrum. Published in 1938, this edition was a remarkable achievement for a young man - pioneering in its approach to the synthesis of oral and written sources, and giving proper recognition to the fact that these poems were actually composed to be sung.
In 1938 Willie returned to study as a Divinity student, and was ordained in 1943. He served first in Muir of Ord (1943-5) and thereafter in Tobermory (1945-52). In 1952 he received a different sort of call, and after intense thought accepted an invitation from Professor Kenneth Jackson to rejoin the Celtic Department, as a lecturer with special responsibility for the teaching of Scottish Gaelic. Thus began an association that was to prove fruitful in the extreme, during which he became indisputably the most distinguished scholar of the Gaelic literary and historical tradition, published widely in his subject, and contributed literally hundreds of songs to the Sound Archive of the School of Scottish Studies. Volume 35 of the School's journal Tocher, published in 1981 when he had just retired from the service of the University, contains a fine selection of these songs, together with an illuminating biographical sketch.
In his last years Willie remained intellectually active, though the debilitating effects of Parkinson's Disease, borne with patience and fortitude, prevented some of the scholarly plans he had laid for his retirement. He was an unforgettable character: much loved by his students, much missed in the Staff Club when he retired, generous with his knowledge, castigator of false authorities (especially where the authority claimed fell in the area of Gaelic songs or Highland history) and of sloppy thinkers in general, scourge of early risers. The world is a poorer and less colourful place for his passing.
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