Louise Yeoman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Louise Yeoman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1968 (age 56–57) |
| Occupation(s) | Historian and broadcaster |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of St Andrews |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | National Archives of Scotland Glasgow University Library National Library of Scotland |
Louise Yeoman (born 1968) is a historian and broadcaster specialising in the Scottish witch hunts and 17th century Scottish religious beliefs.[1][2]
Yeoman completed a PhD at the University of St Andrews on the subject of the Covenanters. She worked for a year at the National Archives of Scotland and for a short time at Glasgow University Library.[3] In 1992 she became curator of early modern manuscripts and cataloguer of the Wodrow Collection at the National Library of Scotland.[4] In 1996 she was curator of the Library's Jacobite exhibition A Nation Divided. In 1996-97 she was seconded to BBC Scotland as writer and presenter of the BBC TV series Stirring Times.[3]
From 2001 to 2003 Yeoman was co-director of the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft alongside Julian Goodare.[5]
In 2014, interest in Lilias Adie's story encouraged Yeoman and Douglas Speirs, an archaeologist at Fife Council, to look for her burial site. Using 19th-century historical documents, they found a seaweed-covered slab of stone exactly where the documents described: in a group of rocks near the Torryburn railway bridge lay "the great stone doorstep that lies over the rifled grave of Lilly Eadie", and a rock with "the remains of an iron ring".[6]
Yeoman is now a producer and presenter at BBC Radio Scotland, where she works on programmes including Time Travels[7] and the Witch Hunt podcast series with Susan Morrison.[8] She has spoken out about the courage of accused Scottish witches such as Adie.[9]
Yeoman has spoken out in support of Scotland acknowledging the women killed as accused witches: “Do I think there should be a national statement that we think the witch hunt was wrong and we are sorry? Yes. Do I think there should be a national memorial? Yes, and local memorials.”[10]
