METHODOLOGY

British archaeological and anthropological material culture studies have been criticised for their ‘disregard for the significance of method’,Footnote ²⁰ and more generally there is a positive move to outline possibilities and implications, albeit in an open and non-prescriptive manner.Footnote ²¹ This is a study led by the fragments. My wider project (see above) is underpinned by an object biography/itinerary-type approach, such as that broadly described by Woodward,Footnote ²² but distinguished by the way it incorporates ethnographic research. This is the pioneering tactic, underpinned by a suite of interlinked and triangulated interdisciplinary methodologies, that Siân Jones and I championed in our Hilton of Cadboll and St John’s Cross replica studies, where understanding lives will bring us to contemporary social value, with its historical roots.Footnote ²³ This approach creates ‘composite biographies’ that embrace the lives of fragments, replicas, copies, souvenirs and other representations.Footnote ²⁴ In fragmentation studies, it is acknowledged that there is no one way to study fragmentation or interpret fragments.Footnote ²⁵ Biography is a key method that can elucidate the interdependence of people, places and things across time and space, how enchainment references and communicates relationships in new contexts, and the part that memory and identity play.Footnote ²⁶ Ontologically, my underpinning theoretical perspective is ‘new materialist’, embracing ‘how desires, feelings and meanings contribute to social production – relational networks of animate and inanimate’, in the context of understanding subject–object relations.Footnote ²⁷ The research is particularly attuned to responses to materiality, and the messy and rhizomic nature of lives, relationships and networks, as well as our capacity to recover them.

Methodologically, in terms of identification and use of primary sources and original fieldwork (see Acknowledgements), the (re)discovery and elucidation of these fragments, their changing meaning and significance has arisen from:

• • Visiting and exploring archives, including oral histories.

• • Systematic research in contemporary and historic newspapers held in multiple sources, including digital (Google Alerts for coverage during life of project), and judicious use of identified other media (television and radio coverage, YouTube etc).

• • Discussions and formal consultation with collection curators and institutional experts to explore issues and access local knowledge and information in their behind-the-scenes records, including prompting new photography.

• • Interviews and correspondence (direct and indirect) with members of three families associated with fragments, and other individuals with an association.

• • Handling of a real-life fragment and learning its family story in a public workshop held at the University of Stirling.

• • Discussion and participant observation in other workshops organised in Scone, Scone Palace and Perth.

• • Ethnographic semi-structured interviews and participant observation conducted with people in some way associated with the Stone since 1950, but particularly 1996, and staff, owners and visitors at Scone Palace, Westminster Abbey, Edinburgh Castle and Perth Museum.

• • Detective work following leads about specific fragments, including those offered by people who generously engaged with the ongoing research (effectively, a form of snowball sampling).

In January 2025, the first anniversary of the event with which this paper opened led a journalist to discover my project website and contact me. Subsequent press wires about my research generated much media interest on and after 17 January. The result is that many members of the public have contacted me with their family’s knowledge of credible Stone fragments, replicas and other memories relating to the movement of the Stone in 1950/51, often accompanied by supporting evidence. I have signposted where the emerging new knowledge elaborates or modifies any interpretation.Footnote ²⁸

This paper will now introduce the Stone fragments and the history of knowledge of their existence. It will then reveal more about individual lives, characterising the networks in which the fragments were created and circulated. This is the first step to critically exploring ‘material culture’ themes that emerge when reflecting on their meaning, values and significance. In drawing conclusions, the paper considers the implications of these findings not just for the Stone but for research and wider heritage/museum practice.

STONE FRAGMENTATION PROCESS AND KNOWN FRAGMENTS

This research pragmatically defines fragments based on their context and consequences of creation, regardless of whether deliberate or accidental and regardless of size.Footnote ²⁹ The known fragments and their prime references are summarised in the supplementary materials. Normally, ‘fragment’ is used to describe the individual objects considered in this study, except where the term used by others is quoted. The significance of how terminology is employed, and by whom, is discussed later.

As a monument, the Stone began its life as a fragment of the earth’s geology. It was quarried at an unknown time near Scone, on the opposite side of the river Tay from what is now Perth. It is likely only in the thirteenth century that this stone, whatever its earlier life, became the symbolic entity we know as the Stone of Scone/Destiny (fig 2).Footnote ³⁰

Fig 2.

The Stone survives today as a block of stone weighing 152kg and measuring approximately 67cm by 42cm by 26.5cm. The line of the break is visible in the bottom righthand quadrant and runs to the left of the ironwork (compare fig 5). Photograph: © Historic Environment Scotland.

As Stanley presciently observed, ‘The iron rings, the battered surface, the crack which has all but rent its mass asunder, bear witness to long migrations’.Footnote ³¹ It is on these and more recent journeys that intentional and unintentional working of the Stone’s surface resulted in loss of stone. Its six sides have been worked at many times in its life.Footnote ³² The full sequence of events, their dating and what they represent is difficult to establish, even after forensic examination.Footnote ³³ Notably, there is a scholarly disagreement about whether the two iron rings attached to the side of the Stone were added in Scotland or once the Stone was moved to Westminster Abbey.Footnote ³⁴ Certainly, metal tools in the hands of unknown people have resulted in the loss of outer surfaces. The most obvious example is the crudely worked sinkings made to allow the applied rings to lie flat within the Stone’s body. There is also the incomplete rectangular outline cut into the top surface, which predates these insets. Fairly large fragments must have been somehow knocked off the arrises of the Stone, deliberately or otherwise. With two, possibly three, hollows visible on the front face of the Stone, Rodwell also argues ‘it is almost inconceivable that pieces have not been detached from the Stone and taken away by souvenir hunters at various times’, possibly relic hunters, and one German visitor in 1710 recorded how tempted he was to do so.Footnote ³⁵ But it is only in modern times that we have documentary evidence that fragments were retained or were deliberately taken to be kept.Footnote ³⁶

The Stone was ‘wickedly fractured during the fitting-up at Westminster in 1838’, for the coronation of Queen Victoria.Footnote ³⁷ This event, not since recognised in Stone scholarship, led to the first record of detached ‘particles’ of the Stone, removed for comparative geological analysis: ‘in preparing this chair for the coronation, some small fragments of this stone were broken off’, the author ‘assured by a geological friend who contrived to obtain part of them’ that Scone quarries contain similar stone.Footnote ³⁸ Later, two celebrated mid- to late-Victorian geologists procured and examined fragments of the Stone, and these became the British Geological Survey (BGS) collection of Stone samples. It appears that in 1865 the Scottish-born Andrew Ramsay collected grains and a fragment of the Stone from gently sweeping loose matters from the underside of the Stone,Footnote ³⁹ while Jethro Teall collected up to five small fragments in 1892, when the Stone was being cleaned. Overall, the BGS Scottish Rock and Mineral collection comprises, or rather comprised, four small fragments of the Stone and five samples of loose mineral grains mounted under a cover slip, some of which their register refers to as a group of ‘crumbs from the Stone of Scone’ (fig 3). In 1996, BGS ‘consumed’/prepared ‘with great care’ one of the ‘chips’ in creating a thin section to reconfirm the Scone-area origins of the Stone.Footnote ⁴⁰

Fig 3.

Three of the four ‘crumbs from the Stone of Scone’ that formed part of BGS S17850, one now mounted in the Diamond State Coach at Buckingham Palace (see fig 9). Photograph: British Geological Survey image, © UKRI 2024, All Rights Reserved Permit Number CP24/048.

In 1914, Suffragettes targeted the Coronation Chair. Most contemporary reports described damage to the front face of the Stone, which ‘bore traces of having been struck by bullets, little chips lying among the dust’,Footnote ⁴¹ their subsequent fate unknown.

Under the excellent lighting and all-round viewing opportunities presented in Perth, the observant visitor notices a crude cementitious repair to the Stone. This is because the Stone comprises two conjoined fragments. Early on Christmas morning 1950, Ian Hamilton (d. 2022) dropped it onto the floor of Westminster Abbey with a clunk while removing it under the cover of night from the Coronation Chair. It fully fractured along its historic crack (see above) when tugged by one of its metal rings. Parties to the conspiracy made a crude repair shortly before the Stone was returned to the authorities on 11 April 1951, left on the high altar of the ruined Arbroath Abbey. A small ‘chip’ of the Stone broke off in Westminster Abbey, Scotland Yard bringing it in a suitcase to Glasgow in April 1951 to help identify the returned Stone.Footnote ⁴² From Glasgow, the Stone was ‘wheeched’ (whisked) to Westminster Abbey, concealed until the King died in 1952. Before being reunited, the two main fragments led separate and somewhat exciting lives as they were often roughly handled and covertly moved from Westminster Abbey around England.Footnote ⁴³ Once in Scotland, severally and latterly conjoined, the fragments were moved clandestinely around and secreted in places encircling the Campsie Fells and other hills between Glasgow and Stirling (fig 4).Footnote ⁴⁴

Fig 4.

Key places associated with the Stone’s movement, including (some of) the fragments. Artwork: Christina Unwin.

Both fragments ultimately made their way to Robert (Bertie) Gray (d. 1975), who played a pivotal role in the removal of the Stone, its repair and its return. Gray was a monumental sculptor, Glasgow politician and magistrate with strong nationalist sentiments, a leading member of the Scottish Covenant Association, which sought some form of self-government for Scotland. His political and practical involvement with the Stone began early, for he made a replica of the Stone in the early 1930s, not long after co-founding the National Party of Scotland in 1928, which later merged to form the SNP in 1934. His idea back then had been to remove the Stone from Westminster Abbey and to substitute it with his replica.Footnote ⁴⁵

On Hogmanay 1950, Gray received the larger portion and placed it in the care of businessman John Rollo (d. 1985). ‘Sickened’ to see about a fifth of the Stone missing, Rollo hid it in his Bonnybridge engineering works but quickly moved it on to a trusted colleague in Stirling. Tam Smith proudly reported his role to the tabloid Scottish press in 1967, where his grandson Ken Lawton revived it in 2024. Smith, as a ‘200 per cent’ Scotsman, stored the fragment for three months under sacks and a work bench; ‘The rest of the story everyone knows, except that there are still a few small pieces of the Stone in Scotland. I have one which I treasure greatly.’Footnote ⁴⁶ Lawton told me that ‘Stirling was quite a stronghold of nationalists and the nationalist movement’ at this time, and his grandpa was ‘part of the core post-war nationalists’. Within a fortnight, the smaller fragment also made its way to Bonnybridge via Bishopbriggs (per David Forrester and the father of Alan Stuart, one of the Glasgow students).Footnote ⁴⁷ Rollo entrusted it to his co-director James Scott, who hid it in an HP Sauce carton in his Bonnybridge garage.

Bertie Gray was the righthand man of John MacCormick (d. 1961) when it came to both politics (they were Scottish Liberals) and the Stone. While Hamilton must be credited for the initiative to take the Stone in 1950, he did so in the context of supporting the Scottish Covenant Association, led by MacCormick, a lawyer and the leading activist for this ‘all-party and non-party’ movement.Footnote ⁴⁸ Hamilton had led MacCormick’s campaign to become lord rector of Glasgow University, and MacCormick offered financial support to the ‘student reivers’, as he later described them.Footnote ⁴⁹

Come the end of March 1951, MacCormick wanted the two Stone ‘parts’ to be reunited. King George vi was seriously ill and agitated that his daughter might not be able to be crowned upon on the Stone and fulfil its traditional prophecy.Footnote ⁵⁰ It was important to take the initiative and return the Stone with pride and dignity (the activists were not anti-royalty).Footnote ⁵¹ Via Glasgow and Kilsyth, in the case of the smaller fragment, the fragments made their way to the Bearsden home of William Whyte, a chartered accountant and former treasurer of the National Party. Here Gray’s foreman mason, Aberdonian Edward (Ned) Manley (d. 1962), ‘a craftsman of the old school’, rejoined the two fragments over the Easter weekend.Footnote ⁵² In 1955, MacCormick wrote vividly about the noise as Manley used a steel drill and mallet to make holes in the Stone into which ‘bronze bolts’ were inserted, the gap filled in with cement.Footnote ⁵³ Manley allayed MacCormick’s concerns about the Stone shattering by showing him the process. The guts of his repair, and scale of intervention – involving three dowels with metal sleeves, one around 15cm long – is exposed in X-radiographs (fig 5).

Fig 5.

Outline of the upper face of the Stone with superimposed X-radiographs of its fracture. Image: Historic Environment Scotland.

MacCormick recounted how ‘there was a little pile of small chips and powdered stone on the table’, which inspired him to ask whether the latter could be incorporated into the cement, which it was, and ‘we felt satisfied that we had used the Stone’s own material in its repair’. The thinking was that this helped make the repair less visible. First, though, Gray inserted a political message in one of the internal metal tubes, the text of which he left to his widow, revealed on her death in 1980.Footnote ⁵⁴ Whyte’s wife Kathleen later described how the Stone sat on her dining table as the cement repair dried, noting how visible in fact this was. Gray applied finishing touches to try to mask the line, using soot, carborundum and lead pencil. Gray and others present collected and took away the ‘chips’ of the Stone, and residual grains of sandstone; between them it seems that they neither left incriminating evidence nor threw any of it away – all of it was valued (see below).

Most of the known fragments have a link to that 1951 repair, and most were distributed due to the agency of Gray (fig 6).Footnote ⁵⁵ An article in the Calgary Herald for 25 April 1951 is a revelation. Within weeks of the return of the Stone to London, the London correspondent of the Calgary Herald, Dick Sanburn, was in Glasgow to write an article about Scottish nationalism. He described attending a ceilidh (party) of the people involved with the Stone. His long article is largely taken up with what he learnt from Gray, ‘one of the most fascinating of them all’. Gray described how ‘When the stone was being repaired, a number of chips had to be taken off in order to fit the two pieces properly and smoothly together. These will be, later precious relics, carefully numbered and recorded to prevent a flood of fakes’; Sanburn ending with: ‘I am the extremely proud [owner] of the tiny chip numbered 25.’Footnote ⁵⁶ A 1956 newspaper article states that there were thirty-four ‘tiny fragments’, making the point that the Stone ‘is not complete’.Footnote ⁵⁷

Fig 6.

Summary of Stone fragments known to be dispersed by Bertie Gray, and their transmission (correct to December 2024). Artwork: Christina Unwin. Photographs: copyright Herald and Times/Newsquest Media Group; Jamie Hamilton; Scots Independent collection, Scottish Political Archive, University of Stirling; Queensland Museum H2400.1, photographer Peter Waddington; photographer unknown via Getty Images; Scottish National Party, photographer Ross Colquhoun.

Public responses since 17 January 2025 evidence that Gray wrote numbers on fragments (multiple examples survive in different private hands) and was meticulous in cross-referencing accompanying letters of authenticity to these numbers. Gray also retained and distributed further tiny fragments that he did not number but would still authenticate in writing (if he always did this is unknown). In what follows, I cannot confirm whether the fragments described were among the numbered examples.

It seems probable that Gray used the festive ceilidh on 25 April 1951 to hand out a lot of the fragments that he had collected in Bearsden. Was this when Glaswegian writer and broadcaster Jack House (d. 1991) acquired the fragment he passed to renowned Scottish writer Nigel Tranter in 1971 (see later), ‘a very wee piece of red sandstone nestling at the bottom of an envelope … guaranteed as genuine by Councillor Robert Gray, of Glasgow Corporation, and that means it’s authentic’?Footnote ⁵⁸

Certainly, individuals who were closely involved with the planning and implementation of the Stone’s removal received fragments. Sheila Hamilton, then wife of Ian Hamilton, revealed in 1996 that ‘three pieces of the stone, each just larger than a 50p, were mounted as jewellery’ and were ‘thought to have gone to fellow conspirators’.Footnote ⁵⁹ Hamilton had his fragment enshrined in a silver brooch with a symbolic if relatively modest design, as would have befitted his means at the time. Ian gave it to Sheila as a twenty-first birthday present on 8 July Reference Hamilton1951, ‘with best wishes for the years of wisdom’. On the back, the Stone’s traditional fourteenth-century prophecy is inscribed, originally Latin but translated and popularised by Sir Walter Scott: ‘Unless the fates should faithless prove and prophets voice be vain, where’er this sacred stone is found the Scottish race shall reign’ (fig 7a–b). Sheila never wore her brooch, but kept it in a family safe. In 1980, Kay Matheson, who lived in Inverasdale and became a domestic science teacher, told a journalist that ‘I have a tiny piece of the Stone in a locket round my neck to remind me of those days’ (fig 7c).Footnote ⁶⁰ Kay had had to let Gray know, through MacCormick, that she would like a ‘small piece of the Stone of Destiny’, duly posted on 19 November 1953, with apologies and a humorous ‘with compliments’ ditty ‘from’ the Dean of Westminster (see Supplementary Material).Footnote ⁶¹ The family of Alan Stuart were undoubtedly gifted multiple fragments, given their roles; one is known to have been mounted in the kilt-pin of Alan Stuart’s brother, Ronald.Footnote ⁶² Did the fourth student, Gavin Vernon, also receive a fragment?

Fig 7.

(a–b) front and back of the Sheila Hamilton brooch, with its dedication from her husband-to-be. Photograph: Jamie Hamilton. (c) Kay Matheson photographed for the press wearing her fragment-bearing locket, beside a framed text of the Arbroath Declaration of Independence. Photograph: © Mirrorpix.

Then there were the people involved in or who witnessed the repair. Of Gray himself, not long after the Perth Museum opened in 2024, the nephew of a ‘stone mason’ told a visitor experience assistant (VEA) that his uncle had a piece of the Stone on his Albert chain, the opposite end from the fob watch, indeed that nearly everyone in the family had a bit; assuming his uncle was Gray as opposed to Manley,Footnote ⁶³ this is likely the ‘chipping’ that Gray was carrying in his pocket at Ian Hamilton’s 1952 graduation, and while in London in 1955.Footnote ⁶⁴ Rollo witnessed Manley beginning to chip holes in the Stone; his daughter reported in 1989 that she had a ‘fragment of the stone from the workshop floor’, and sources local to Cambusbarron, near Stirling, where Margaret Walker lived, suggest that this became part of a silver necklace. ^{Footnote 65} The MacCormick family also acquired a fragment. In March 1974, Gray provided a certificate for ‘the small piece of sandstone in the possession of Mrs Margaret MacCormick’, John’s wife. John MacCormick knew of the fragment distribution, but was quite clear on his lack of interest in the Stone’s materiality and I suspect he did not acquire his own fragment: ‘We saw the Stone, not as an object of superstitious awe, but as a symbolic instrument to remind a whole people of their nationhood. It is not in material things, however great their real or their sentimental value, but the minds of men that destiny is fulfilled.’Footnote ⁶⁶

Further to this, Gray ‘wanted to send a piece to every land mass in the world’. On 2 July 1955, he gave a ‘small piece of red sandstone … taken from the Stone of Destiny when it was being repaired by me’ to Mrs Catherine Milne (fig 8a; journey in fig 4). Visiting Scotland from Australia, she met Gray and spoke about his repairs to the Stone. On her death in 1967, the family donated the fragment, accompanying letter of authentication and Gray business card to Queensland Museum.

Fig 8.

(a) Fragment donated to Catherine Milne. Photograph: © Queensland Museum H2400.1–3, photographer Peter Waddington. (b) Winnie Ewing wearing her necklace with inset Stone fragment. Photograph: photographer unknown via Getty Images. (c) Framed fragment and letter donated to Marion Eadie. Photograph: © Historic Environment Scotland.

The existence of fragments was certainly not a secret but revelations about them were highly dispersed, temporally and geographically. In 1959 Sir Patrick Dollan, a former Glasgow lord provost, stood up in front of 2,000 people and held up a ‘fragment of stone which he said was a piece of the Stone of Scone’ after The Reivers folk band sang ‘The Wee Magic Stane’.Footnote ⁶⁷ John McEvoy had written this humorous and enduring political song in 1951, shortly after the Stone’s disappearance became public. It teased the unfortunate Dean of Westminster after ‘some rogue ran away wi his wee magic stane’. Dollan announced that ‘it had been given to him by one of the Scottish nationalists concerned with abstracting the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey’.Footnote ⁶⁸ At least two other (SNP) politicians also owned fragments: Winnie Ewing (d. 2023) was photographed wearing a locket with television host David Frost in 1967, admitting ‘she would like to be arrested for being in possession of stolen property’ (fig 8b), with other sources showing her wearing the necklace during her successful campaign for election to Parliament in November 1967.Footnote ⁶⁹ When Margo MacDonald (d. 2014) won Govan in 1973, the ‘nicest wee touch’ was a gift from Gray of ‘a wee chip off the Stone of Destiny’.Footnote ⁷⁰

In September 1974, Gray reported to the press that he did (still) have in his possession ‘one or two small pieces’ of the Stone.Footnote ⁷¹ On 4 December 1974, Gray wrote a letter of authentication ‘about a small piece of sandstone’ to Mrs Marion Eadie, his daughter (fig 8c). In 2018, Eadie put her framed letter and fragment up for auction, where it was expected to reach around £3,000.Footnote ⁷² Concern about the sale of part of the Stone led to the item’s discreet withdrawal from auction. At a time when only one Stone fragment was known to the Commissioners, the case was put forward to the Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel (SAFAP) for Treasure Trove allocation. This unusual case raised some difficult questions about ownership and reward responsibility, but the Queen’s [now King’s] and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer (KLTR), and SAFAP ultimately agreed its allocation to Historic Environment Scotland (HES) with an acquisition price of £6,500.

There are also at least two examples between 1951 and 1960 of individuals asking Gray for fragments so that the geology of the Stone could be tested (Ludovic Mann; George H Thompson, seeking to prove an origin in Israel). Thompson described receiving ‘pieces from the “heart” of the Stone’.Footnote ⁷³

Finally, from the media it emerged during 2023 that a fragment of the Stone had been installed by an Australian royal coachmaker into the Diamond Jubilee State Coach, which the Australian Government donated to the British royal family in 2013. The King and Queen sat with the fragment between their legs as they journeyed to their coronation on 6 May 2023 (fig 9; journey in fig 4). Jim Frecklington designed the interior of the coach so that its occupants would be surrounded by a time capsule of fragments representing ‘the most intense collection of the great events, figures and objects of British history ever assembled, items directly related to the most influential events and characters in British history, her greatest victories, her most treasured places, and her greatest contributions to the world’. Examples included timber and artefacts from the Tower of London, 10 Downing Street, numerous palaces, castles, cathedrals and the Ferriby Bronze Age boat; also included were ‘segments’ related to people such as William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale and digital copies of Magna Carta and Domesday Book.Footnote ⁷⁴ On television, Frecklington described the Stone as ‘probably one of the most important items … We could not have hoped to dream that a small piece of the Stone of Scone could be made available through the kindness and vision of the Government of Scotland’.Footnote ⁷⁵ In around 2007, Frecklington had approached HES’s predecessor body for a piece of the Stone. Historic Scotland declined – it would have required breaking off and creating a new fragment. Instead, Frecklington approached the BGS where senior managers and its Collections Advisory Panel agreed to donate one of their samples (see above).Footnote ⁷⁶

Fig 9.

The Stone fragment is inserted behind a circular glass window, immediately beneath the centre of the two front-facing seats of the Diamond Jubilee State Coach. Photographs: © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2025/Royal Collection Trust.

WHAT WERE THE FRAGMENTS ‘DOING’?

Context, of course, dictates the nature of the networks in which our fragments of the Stone were created in the act of fragmentation, circulated and recirculated, spoken of and reported, known of, and the polysemic meanings and values that have attached to and evolved with them.

As noted earlier, visitors and pilgrims possibly removed souvenirs and relics of the Stone. In documented sources, we first encounter fragments as evidence of origins, and that role endured. In the nineteenth century, a small body of geological samples were deliberately created and curated because scientific techniques could answer the critical question of geological origins, and fragments created in 1951 were later deployed in this way. This was of public interest because of the Stone’s colourful and diverse mythology.Footnote ⁷⁷ As we saw above, these tiny, curated fragments have since been considered partly expendable: they can be ‘consumed’ to create knowledge. A new life was injected into them when, with the return of the Stone to Scotland in 1996, public debate and opinions about its authenticity and origins was reignited,Footnote ⁷⁸ and the authorities employed new geological analysis to aid discussions about the Stone’s material authenticity. Petrology has remained the go-to method for authenticating the geological provenance of new fragments coming to light, even when there is a secure or persuasive provenience/provenance.Footnote ⁷⁹ In the Diamond Jubilee State Coach, we find an example of fragments as curiosities, specimens of past national landmarks, cocooned in a regal Kunstkammer, a thoughtful gift that speaks to Commonwealth relations, if rather insensitive towards some domestic ones in its use and siting of a Stone fragment.

Attitudes to the 1950 break and 1951 repair of the main parts of the Stone are extremely eloquent. Overall, the students’ adrenaline-driven handling of the Stone was cavalier, as a close reading of Hamilton’s Stone of Destiny makes very clear.Footnote ⁸⁰ However, breaking it was accidental, if fortunate in that the Stone was then easier to move. Hamilton talked shortly after of his immediate response:

We see here the fragments as political metaphor, as a vehicle to mending things in society for the better. The Stone broke along a historic crack, its ‘final fracture new’, according to Rollo, one of the first people to see both fragments on their return to Scotland.Footnote ⁸² Manley preferred an alternative argument: ‘It’s been an auld crack in the Stane. It wasna our laddies who broke it’. MacCormick noted weathering of the fracture, and the students and their other activists became quick to suggest that the Suffragette bomb had caused the full break.Footnote ⁸³ Matheson went as far as to suggest that the students had ‘discovered a State secret’, deliberately concealed.Footnote ⁸⁴ There is a sense of fragments as convenient political truth and fragments as a link to kindred dispossessed groups.

The behind-the-scenes story of the repair of the Stone evidences a respect for the Stone for what it stood for. From a conservation perspective we might be shocked by the repair methods (see fig 5), but Manley and Gray were proud of their speedy craftsmanship, as long-experienced makers of grave markers.

Tam Smith took his own fragment as souvenir, one he confidently ‘liberated’ with a cold chisel. Waste fragments and grains begat during the 1951 repairs were clearly carefully collected, curated and distributed by Gray over the course of the next twenty-four years.Footnote ⁸⁵ We have to think here of what this collection of fragments was doing for Gray, and what they did for the recipients (and indeed the others present who took some fragments). Gray clearly had a sense of humour and spread replica-induced confusion in relation to the material authenticity of the Stone returned to Westminster Abbey,Footnote ⁸⁶ but his practices in relation to the fragments were very serious indeed. Notably, he systematically numbered, curated and distributed thirty-four of the fragments as relics of the true Stone, their future authenticity and integrity to be ensured through affidavits, beyond the inner circle. If only we had the list that it seems likely Gray managed over his lifetime. Sanburn received such documentation in Reference Sanburn1951,Footnote ⁸⁷ which also accompanied known gifts in 1955 and 1974, while Matheson’s accompanying label was affectionately wry and witty.

Gray traded on styling himself as the man who repaired the Stone, so we see him employing the fragments as a form of personal capital in his social and political networks. On present evidence, he appears to have circulated the fragments in five main ways. First, gifting to those closely involved in the Stone’s recent life story, and to sympathetic, like-minded people who supported the cause, so fragments as markers of shared experience and trust. Second, Gray sought to ensure that fragments with a secure provenance could be found around the world. Was Gray flirting with the traditional prophecy that ‘where’er this sacred stone is found the Scottish race shall reign’? Are we looking at fragments as subversive ambassadors for the tradition and authority of a more independent Scotland? Gifts to journalists at home and abroad may be more than media titbits, looked at in this light. Third, Gray gifted fragments to politicians that he respected, including fragments as deeply symbolic markers of political landmarks that were meaningful to Scottish nationalists. Fourth, in the years leading up to his death, Gray distributed the last fragments, perhaps remedying perceived gaps in who possessed a fragment (the MacCormick family). He also distributed the last parts of his stash among his descendants, so fragments as directed heirlooms (only one family member could presumably inherit a watch). Finally, he responded to requests, whether oversights (Matheson) or for ‘unauthorised’ geological research.

To the fragment recipients, it is notable how fragments kept by families directly associated with the Stone’s removal were, with one exception, encapsulated in items to be worn close to the person, in two instances jewellery of distinctively Scottish character, and in one instance with a political inscription that only the owner would encounter. The fragments were being transformed into fragments as mementos of conspiracy, their form as fragments being core to that expression. Other recipients also captured their fragment in jewellery, or behind glass, with the written proof that they were really from the Stone. With the fragments being so tiny and vulnerable to loss, they warranted being kept secure as well as protected.Footnote ⁸⁸ With the likely perception of the fragments as being stolen property, few people opted to brazenly flaunt and taunt with their possession, except for some politicians.

Within the involved families, we witness the fragments as treasured biographical ‘hooks’, tangible expressions of a reservoir of intangible knowledge and emotions. They spoke to and of a network of people who together did something rather remarkable, acting as a prompt for passing down stories and renewed generation of familial pride. MacCormick’s wife ‘had a little bit of the Stone [in a box], but she was terribly proud of it, she used to keep in in the bookcase … between two books. She was always showing this’.Footnote ⁸⁹ Smith kept his fragment ‘in a wee Bluebell matchbox, wrapped in a piece of tissue paper … because he was very proud of it, and it was kept in a safe in his house [in Bannockburn]’ (fig 10). He would occasionally ask his family, ‘do you want to see the piece of the Stone’ – something he regarded as a totem of subjugation of the Scots rather than something mystical – and he took it abroad to show friends.Footnote ⁹⁰ So, the performance of retrieving the secreted object and accompanying act of narration amplified the significance of these tiny subjects, which referenced yearning for a politically transformed Scotland as well as important actions by forebears.Footnote ⁹¹

Fig 10.

Extract from The People’s Journal, Perthshire Edition, 8 April 1967 (Smith Reference Smith1967). Image: Used by kind permission of D C Thomson & Co Ltd, photographer unknown.

Tranter received his special gift at a book launch in 1971, keeping the ‘chip’ for 40 years under the seat of a small silver Coronation Chair and finding it worthy of later talking to the press about, even though he believed the Stone to be a thirteenth-century fake.Footnote ⁹² A campaigner for self-rule, indeed vice convenor of the Scottish Covenant Association 1951–5, he had been brought into the Stone plot once a dignified way was sought to return the Stone to the king,Footnote ⁹³ and the donor likely knew this. Journalist Sanburn had his ‘tiny chip … none other than a piece of the Stone of Destiny’ and Gray affidavit framed behind his editor’s desk in the Calgary Herald offices (journey in fig 4).Footnote ⁹⁴

Clearly, an enormous responsibility attached to caring for such tiny things, their significance recognised to be greater than a family story passed down generations. Mind you, Smith said that ‘if I’d known the Stone of Destiny would eventually be returned to Westminster, I’d have dumped it in the Forth and to heck with the consequences’, but ‘at least I’ve got a piece of Stone and its forever and it will be forever in Scotland’.Footnote ⁹⁵ His family ensured the latter when he was apparently buried with it in Bannockburn Cemetery.

Of particular interest is what happened at the time of transaction when the fragments changed hands.Footnote ⁹⁶ Their fates were planned for: as heirlooms that someone else appreciating their material authenticity would treasure. With such transitions, usually linked with changes in generations, came new lives and meanings. Knowing he would shortly die, Professor Neil MacCormick (d. 2009), son of John and Margaret, bequeathed that fragment to Salmond in 2008.Footnote ⁹⁷ Alex Salmond properly declared this and the Permanent Secretary officially ‘agreed that the fragment need not be surrendered to Historic Scotland’, the body caring for the Stone in Edinburgh Castle on behalf of the Commissioners. ^{Footnote 98} This is the action that ultimately led to the 2024 media furore with which this article began. The fragments started their lives as private things, perhaps known to family and friends, but have become more ‘public’ when the owners or their children died, or recognised they were very ill and sought to sell them, pass them to a museum, gift them to a person or institution that would appreciate the story and political significance of the fragment in question, or wanted to amplify the story of their ancestor’s achievement and worth.Footnote ⁹⁹

Overall, we are witnessing fragments as extended objects that owe intangible meanings to the relationships of ordinary and extraordinary people – the networks in which they circulated and lived – as well as any intrinsic material significance as known fragments of the Stone. Whatever the context, the privately circulating mementos had a social value, amplified by the transmission of memories. My evidence is biased, because the known examples from 1951 mostly map directly to families closely involved with the Stone and politicians, and that is perhaps why they have survived, or their stories have gradually come to light and were the ones I could find. From these families, we see how they cared for them, emotionally and physically. We can also trace the fragments’ progression to valued heirlooms.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ These unique objects were more than souvenirs, and could survive, even if not enshrined or forming part of a ‘collection’.Footnote ¹⁰¹

WHAT ARE THE FRAGMENTS DOING NOW?

This section addresses relevant material culture issues within the overall framework of the ‘heritage cycle’, introducing even further new primary evidence. The heritage cycle has proved useful in offering a recognisable framework for considering different aspects of heritage and museum management and their inter-relationships.Footnote ¹⁰² Its premise is that an understanding of value (iteratively fed and shaped by knowledge and understanding of something), and hence cultural significance (the sum of values), is used to inform decisions about how to secure things for the future and how such resources can be engaged for wider public benefit, generating a desire to know more about heritage. As already mentioned, others are also now starting to use understanding of fragments and fragmentation as a lens for reflecting on heritage practices and related meta-narratives.Footnote ¹⁰³

CRACKING YARNS: WHAT CAN THE FRAGMENTS DO IN THE FUTURE?

The text of my initial submission presciently predicted that more fragments would be known before this paper was published. The welcome public responses to the January 2025 media interest are revelatory. They justify why a composite biographical approach to the Stone, its fragments and replicas is essential to fully understand contemporary meanings and significance. Sources clearly exist to aid study of fragment provenance. Subject to their consent, there is an unparalleled opportunity for future ethnographic work with the families that have come forward, to generate a rich understanding of the history and social value of these fragments. Indeed, it is desirable to collaboratively co-create a future for their fragment stories. Such an in-depth study would also permit an exploration of the work that the reported fragments do as contemporary relics (materially authentic or otherwise), alongside the role of replicas.

Its fragmentation and fragments, intentional and unintentional, make up the back stories of the Stone, transforming and magnifying its contemporary meanings, values and significance. The revelations described in this paper are particularly significant in relation to the events of 1951, after nationalists made the Stone a twentieth-century cause célèbre. This paper has tracked for the first time how fragments existed and ‘secretly’ made their way into private collections and have had significant, sometimes purposed, afterlives. Stone fragments collided with and amplified the lives and memories of many people and places, over time and space: activities and meanings are diverse and unauthorised because they involve wide elements of society.Footnote ¹²⁵ Broken and modified, fragments can work a magic that readily links the tangible and intangible, relating materiality and social value.Footnote ¹²⁶ Fragments are about more than scientific value; they and their fragmentation are stories not just grand and meta- narratives,Footnote ¹²⁷ although cumulatively they can also contribute to – indeed actively subvert – the latter. Fragments as resources are a thing of importance and significance, not just an expression of loss. Visible acts of fragmentation and repair can productively speak volumes to visitors to museum and heritage sites, and not only in the context of culture in crisis.Footnote ¹²⁸

What fragments might yet do will also be bound up with how we label them. When in a museum or heritage context we talk of ‘fragments’ or ‘particles’, rather than ‘chips’, ‘pieces’ or ‘grains’, we perhaps use a technical language we are comfortable with to objectify such material culture and deem it ‘fit’ for the rigours of our scientific endeavour; but if we look at the words that the fragments’ handlers most commonly use, or that appear in popular accounts, the words used in relation to the Stone tends to ‘piece’ or ‘chip’. Arguably these descriptors better evoke the relationship between the fragment and the things from which it originated, with ‘chip’ not just referring to how the thing came into being but alluding to a positive familial relationship, as in a ‘chip off the old block’. Either way, like ‘replicas’, terminology may also contribute to the dismissal of fragments; perhaps such an attitude to value underpinned the 2008 Scottish Cabinet outcome with which this paper opened.

This pioneering fragment-led approach to a cultural object, with its social value lens, illustrates how, even for such an apparently well-known subject as the Stone, there are new, nuanced, individually interesting and cumulatively important, if challenging, stories to be discovered through rigorous and imaginative modes of interdisciplinary research. Such an approach therefore invites critical thinking about how such a focus and resultant knowledge informs understandings and application of cultural significance, whether historically fragmented material or material that is fragmented due to current political or environmental crises. This is not simply within but across institutions and disciplinary silos,Footnote ¹²⁹ and in overarching national and international bodies that can influence the fate and future lives of such things, including movement across national borders.Footnote ¹³⁰ Despite the averred apolitical stance of most heritage and museum bodies, such fragments are political, even all-party and non-party, if we mirror the concept of the mid-twentieth-century Scottish National Covenant. They owe their lives to this fact, and we risk losing something vital if that passion is suppressed.

Periodically there have been calls for the Stone to tour, in Scotland (1996) or in the Commonwealth after the late Queen’s 1953 coronation.Footnote ¹³¹ The world is now a very different place, but fragments as ‘extended objects’, part of a composite biographical whole, can travel and work their contemporary power and magic in ways that the Stone practically cannot: ‘maybe a fragment will come here one day, that would be an interesting thing wouldn’t it’ (‘Phillip’, Westminster Abbey).