Argyll’s Rothesay on the Isle of Bute is, of course, ‘the other Rothesay’ if you’re living in the Rothesay in New Brunswick in Canada. But since we’re here in Argyll in Scotland and we’ve been galvanised by the This Is Who We Are exhibition which we may see in Argyll, , it seems fun to take a look at our ‘other Rothesay’.

The New Brunswick town is culturally rich. Its gene pool encompasses its earliest inhabitants, the First Nation Maliseet and Mi`kmaq, French colonists and English settlers.

Rothesay in New Brunswick was so named by a whim of the then Prince of Wales,who later became King Edward VII, because it reminded him of Rothesay in Bute. The current Prince of Wales of course goes undet the title of Duke of Rothesay when he crosses the border from England into Scotland. The affection for Rothesay on Bute is clearly a family legacy enshrined in this title.

New Brunswick’s Rothesay developed as a centre for shipbuilding and later became a summer watering hole for the wealthy elite of the nearby city of St John’s, supported by the launch of the  European and North American Railway in 1853. (The track is visible in this photograph.) There is a sort of a parallel here wiht Rothesay in Bute – but with a class difference. Day trips to Rothesay in Bute and summer holidays there became the tribal holiday pastime for the working class in the city of Glasgow to whom Rothesay was ‘doon the watter’. Rothesay’s seaside resort history is recorded in many of the films in the Scottish Screen Archive.

The history of Rothesay, New Brunswick, shows in the pre-Canadian Confederation nature of some of its houses. The Victorian and Edwardian past of Rothesay on Bute is also evident in many of its buildings from the Victorian neo-gothic glories of Mount Stuart House to the delights of the Victorian lavatories on Rothesay Harbour.

The New Brunswick town is home to a notable private school, Rothesay Netherwood School. The school on Rothesay is Rothesay Academy, part of a new joint campus created by Argyll and Bute Council’s  education department.

Rothesay Netherwood School has the distinction of having been home to John Peters Humphrey. Humphrey was educated at Rothesay Collegiate School, later Rothesay Netherwood School. He went on to study law at Canada’s renowned McGill University and then became a member of its law faculty.

He was appointed as the first Director of the Human Rights Division in the United Nations Secretariat after the second World War in 1946 and was a principal drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights published in 1948.

While Rothesay in New Brunswick is almost twice the size of Rothesay in Bute – with a population of around 11,600 as opposed to 6,000 and, as an equally easy going town, is only ten minutes away from the city of St John, the two Rothesays share some similarities.

Both are attractive waterfront towns – Rothesay in Bute on the great Clyde waterway and Rothesay New Brunswick on the majestic and evocatively named Kennebecasis River. Rothesay in Bute is almost a single community with neighbouring Port Bannatyne. And in 1998 the township of Rothesay in New Brunswick became the town of Rothesay, meged with its neighbouring communities of East Riverside-Kingshurst, Fairvale, Renforth and Wells.

There is a lovely piece of public sculpture in Rothesay New Brunswick, commemorating their rowing victory at the  1867 World Exposition in Paris, defeating England’s famed Tyne Crew on the Kennebecasis River.

One phemenomenon the two towns do not share – yet – is economic growth. Rothesay New Brunswick. The Canadian town has see almost 15,000 square metres of commercial development over the last two years and in planning are developments that will add a further 10,000+ square metres. The area describes is work force as highly educated and rapidly growing.

There is, of course, another link for both the Scottish and Canadian Rothesay’s to explore. New Zealand’s North Island has Rothesay Bay, another waterfront community and part of North Shore in Auckland on its east coast. The This Is Who We Are exhibition’s organisers might well be interested in a tripartite exchange, opening all three sets of doors.

Some additional links are:

• Rothesay Living Museum
• Rothesay, Isle of Bute
• This Is Who We Are

Photographs

The photographs accompanying this article are reproduced by permission and have been given to For Argyll to use by Mary Jane Banks, Director of Administrative Services at Rothesay, New Brunswick.

They show, from the top:

• The Town Hall at Rothesay, New Brunswick
• The old Station House with the track of the European and North American railway in the foreground
• Rothesay Netherwood School and the School’s Chapel
• The annual Dragon Boat Festival at Renforth Wharf on the Kennebecasis River
• The sculpture commemorating the Paris rowing victory over England’s Tyne crew in 1867
• Dusk at Renforth Boat Club on the Kennebecasis River, underlinging the common waterfront lifestle of the two – the three – Rothesays.