Motion of Condolence on the Passing of Dr Elspeth King

That the Parliament expresses its sadness at the death of Dr Elspeth King, who was the pioneering curator of the People's Palace in Glasgow from 1974 to 1990 and director of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum from 1994 to 2018; offers its deepest sympathy and condolences to her partner, Michael Donnelly, her family, friends and all those whose lives she touched; recognises her transformative role in championing Scotland's working-class heritage, social history and hidden stories, from acquiring Billy Connolly's iconic banana boots to commissioning the late Alasdair Gray as Glasgow's first artist-recorder in 1977 and producing the Continuous Glasgow Show from January to June 1978, which showcased 30 original works by Gray, capturing the city's people and places before mass demolition took place in the Comprehensive Development Areas; notes that she indeed successfully campaigned to save the People's Palace itself from potential closure and demolition in the late 1970s to make way for the construction of the M74 "Hamilton Motorway" through Glasgow Green, which was indefinitely postponed in the 1980s; acknowledges her fearless advocacy against the commodification of culture, her scholarship on the Scottish suffrage movement and her leadership in restoring Abbot House in Dunfermline between 1990 and 1994; appreciates the record-breaking exhibitions she curated, earning her an honorary doctorate from the University of Stirling in 2005, including those on the Temperance Movement and Glasgow's stained glass, which brought history to life for generations and won the European Museum of the Year Award in 1981 and the British Museum of the Year Award in 1983 for the People's Palace, helping to secure its future, and affirms that Dr King, who was reportedly once derided by Glasgow's museum establishment at Kelvingrove as a "midden raker", leaves what it sees as a precious legacy that unearthed and celebrated the extraordinary history of working-class Scots, and which will inspire future custodians of the nation's memory.