Montrose Museum and Art Gallery has been awarded the Elizabeth Hammond Grant in 2025 for the conservation and display of an East India Company officer’s coat and waistcoat.
In January 2024 ANGUSalive embarked on a Museums Galleries Scotland funded project to fully catalogue and research their historic World Cultures collection.
This will culminate in August 2025 with an exhibition at Montrose Museum, an educational resource for local schools on Angus and the slave trade, and a programme of events to engage with the community. The museum is working to decolonise their collections, open dialogue with the global majority, and join the wider conversation in the museum sector about the legacies of colonialism.
Through this vital research the museum has uncovered rare and unique objects from around the world including an East India Company officer's uniform. The history of Angus is inextricably linked with the mercantile and seafaring activities of East India Company through which wealth generated in India flowed back to the county via the port at Montrose.
The uniform dates from the late 18th century and belonged to Henry Hoile, born in Kent, c.1750. He was the father of Dr Henry Hoile of Montrose, who from 1850 was a surgeon to the Forfar & Kincardineshire Militia. Dr Henry Hoile’s descendants donated it to the museum in 1957.
The uniform will form part of an upcoming 2025 exhibition and the conservation of this uniform will help to explore how Angus benefited from the damaging legacies of colonialism, but also recognise and celebrate the diverse and thriving local community today. The uniforms are in a damaged state and unable to be displayed, but with the Elizabeth Hammond 2025 Grant, the uniform will become a vital part of this upcoming exhibition and programme of events.
For more on Angus's links with the East India Company, the museum has published this detailed review.
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