McManus 168

Background

Peter Airth Feathers was the son of James Feathers,^[1] a tailor in Dundee’s High Street^[25] and his wife, Helen Airth. The building, known as ‘Gardyne’s Land,’ is still present in Dundee’s town centre today and is one of the oldest remaining, dating to the 16th century and earlier.^[26]

Business beginnings

Peter, did not join his father’s trade. In the Post Office Directory for 1846-47 he was listed under “watch and clock makers” at 16 Dock Street,^[27] but listed himself, in the category “Principal Inhabitants of Dundee,”  as living at 5 Castle Court and being a “watchmaker and optician.“^[5] However, in the previous directory, he listed himself as “chronometer and nautical instrument maker.^[3] P A Feathers appears to have been able to turn his hand to numerous different, but associated, occupations successfully. He perhaps seemed most proud of  being a ‘nautical instrument maker’ not ‘optician’ as that is what he called himself in the advert listing the subscribers to the Albert Institute^[28]. Artefacts made and retailed by him appear in the auction catalogues and dealers’ lists throughout the world and examples of his goods are in many major museum collections, including the National Museum of Scotland.^[29]

A prosperous and innovative family firm

Peter married Agnes Barland,^[2] daughter of James Barland, former clerk in the import office at Dundee harbour.^[30]

Feathers sent all his children to the High School of Dundee^[31] and they were very clever, winning prizes in English, Art, Science German, French and Maths.^[32]

His elder two sons joined him in the family firm from 1874.^[16] A catalogue was printed by Peter Feathers junior for the opening of his own premises in the early 1890s,^[33] but there seems to be no similar surviving relic of his father’s business.

Whaling connections and the Albert Institute

Like many Dundonians, Peter Airth Feathers’ life was intertwined with seamen and whaling, having had shares in the Tay Whale Fishing Company^[34] and been heavily involved in fund raising for the widows of sailors lost at sea. But the widespread appreciation of P.A. Feathers’ work is perhaps summed up by the eerie story of the whaling ship ‘Balena’ and her crew’s discoveries of 1894.  The Balena,^[35] having been delayed by pack ice, was moored that July in Elwin Bay, at Prince Regent’s inlet, an Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. A party from the ship went ashore to investigate the state of the ice and made a gruesome discovery.^[36] The remains of several human bodies were found and amongst the remaining possessions were needles and thread, a rifle and a telescope signed P. A Feathers.^[36] There were signs of cannibalism noted amongst the bodies, too gory for the modern reader to endure but which made the story newsworthy across the UK and Canada. The bodies clearly belonged to, what was then known as  Esquimaux,^[36] the Inuit. Having later met with another group of Inuit, further up the Bay, they discovered that the bodies they had found belonged to a group of people who had traded with a Dundee whaler some three years previously at Ganges Bay, British Columbia (then called Admiralty Bay), a quite unimaginably long journey. The party had gone looking for the Dundee whalers again and had not been seen or heard of since. Amongst the bodies were the furs of musk ox and “other animals”^[36] which the Inuit had probably taken to trade with the British sailors. Whilst they had a Snider rifle, they appeared to have no shot or powder.^[36] The Dundonian sailors brought the telescope and other articles they scavenged from the bodies back to Dundee and presented them to the Albert Institute. Presumably Peter Airth Feathers was aware of the discovery of his telescope in these dramatic circumstances.

Death

Peter Airth Feathers bought a plot in the new Western Cemetery, Dundee in 1851 with twelve lairs.^[37] He died on 19th February 1904^[38] and was presumably buried there, although no stone has been found.

His optician’s firm was continued by his son James, his son Peter became a pioneer of cinema in Scotland.^[39] Peter Feathers made some of the earliest films of Dundee, including one of employees leaving Baxter’s Works in 1901^[40] and an 1897 film of Railway trip over the Tay from Tayport to Dundee ^[40] only a decade after the bridge had reopened.