This collection represents 3 box files of material stored in association with the Robert Kidston palaeobotanical slide collection (bequeathed to the University upon his death in 1924) from the time that John Walton was Regius Professor of Botany (1930-1961) until March 2003. During this time the collection was moved from the Botany Building (25th November 1966) into the care of the Hunterian, where the slides were originally stored (along with other geological slide material) in a custom-built room within the Museum, but this was demolished in 2000. Beforehand, all the slides in that room were transferred to the Hunterian's Thurso Street Store. The original red box files have been retained because the handwriting on the spine provides contextual information but the papers have been removed for reasons of preservation.
The papers were transferred to storage in the University's Archive Services in April 2003. The 3 box files cover 2 series of content - Kidston & Gwynne-Vaughan original publication papers (handwritten manuscripts and original pasted-together plates for the same publications); and associated correspondence for the Kidston collection of slides. The first box file contained the handwritten manuscripts for the Kidston & Gwynne-Vaughan Fossil Osmundaceae papers; the second box file contained the original photographs and drafted plates for the Kidston & Gwynne-Vaughan Fossil Osmundaceae papers; the third box file (marked "Kidston Collection + Library") contained the 1912 original manuscript and drafted plates (as well as related 1901-3 correspondence) for the 1912 Kidston & Gwynne-Vaughan paper On the New Carboniferous Flora of Berwickshire. Part I. - Stenomyelon tuedianum? , and correspondence associated with the Kidston collection of slides. All of these manuscripts were published within the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , and all the thin-sections that the work was based on are held by the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, in the Gwynne-Vaughan and Kidston slide collections. The papers are key and definitive works in the understanding of Carboniferous flora, and still referred to in 2003 as classics.
From the guide to the Papers of Robert W Kidston 1852-1924, palaeobotanist, and David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan 1871-1915, palaeobotanist, 1897-1906, (Glasgow University Archive Services)
