Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
The Smith Institute first opened to the public on 11 August 1874. It was an occasion for great celebration in Stirling, and the shops in the town closed at 12 noon to allow people to attend the opening. Nevertheless, there were some mixed feelings, for Thomas Stuart Smith, had died in 1869 and the location of the building was felt by many people to be too far away from the old town.
Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
The first Smith curator was Alexander Croall (1804–1885), a native of Angus who acquired a national reputation as a natural historian, and who was also the first curator of Derby City Museum before his appointment to Stirling. As a young man he had trained himself in botany through his frequent field trips. ‘On those occasions he commonly slept on the heather, carrying his slender commissariat in his pocket’. He corresponded with and was respected by other eminent natural historians, including Balfour, Dickie, Hooker and Darwin. In 1855, Sir William Hooker commissioned Croall to prepare a herbarium of the plants of Braemar for Queen Victoria.