A National Library of Scotland exhibition looking at the changing nature of shops and shopping in Scotland from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Ran from December 2005 to February 2006.
![Detail from advert](/media-u4/21874/jenners_advert_t.jpg)
From the markets of the Middle Ages to the self-service supermarkets of the 1950s, the Scots' experience of shopping has been transformed across the centuries.
A glimpse of the development of shopping over 300 years was provided by the National Library of Scotland's free exhibition, 'Sale of the Centuries'.
Scots and shopping
Open from 8 December to 12 February, this celebration of shopping in Scotland gave a flavour of how Scots shopped before 'malls' and online ordering came to dominate.
Material on display from the Library's collections revealed, for instance:
- Why the Earl of Angus, who lived in Glasgow, brought his bread in Edinburgh in 1608.
- The shopping 'trail' of 18th-century Edinburgh housekeeper Mrs Dudgeon.
- A schoolboy's drawings of shops and streets in the Lanarkshire village of Newarthill in the early 1900s.
- Expeditions to department stores in the 1920s and '30s by a university lecturer.
- What it was like to 'go the messages' in Hawick in the 1950s.
Connery exhibit on loan
![image info](/media-u4/21803/chalk_seller_t.jpg)
chalk-seller, 1900s
Exhibits on loan from other organisations included a staff record slip showing employment details for an Edinburgh milkman working for a co-operative society in the 1940s.
His name is Connery, Sean Connery — now earning millions from his career as a film star.