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Susan Morrison explores the rich and sometimes murky depths of Scotland's past.

Time Travels: Scotland's First Female MP and The Sketchbook of Dr Syntax

Scotland's First Female MP and The Sketchbook of Dr Syntax

BBC Radio Scotland - Time Travels, Scotland's First Female MP and The Sketchbook of Dr Syntax

Comedian Susan Morrison on the 'Red Duchess' and a baby-sketching doctor.

Comedian and history enthusiast Susan Morrison explores the doctor who drew babies, the duchess who got elected to parliament and revolutionary socialist John Maclean.

From Votes for Women to voting for a woman, with Dr Paul Philippou of Dundee University, we look at the woman who was elected Scotland’s first female MP - Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl. She had actually campaigned vociferously against women's rights, but that didn’t stop her becoming an early female cabinet minister and highly controversial anti-fascist politician.  From politics in the 1920s to the medical world of the 1820s and the ‘doctor’ who drew babies, John Sheriff nicknamed ‘Dr Syntax’, delivered the infants of the poorest mothers in Edinburgh hospitals and then drew the newborns, but his notebook also covers mothers who murdered, what was he really interested in? Dr James Kennaway of Roehampton University and Dr Katie Barclay of the University of Adelaide take us into his world. Morag Allan Campbell of St Andrews University tells us about how the later prison system treated mothers who killed their babies while of unsound mind,  and Dr Bill Knox takes us back to 1918 and the imprisonment of revolutionary socialist John Maclean.

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