"five or ten minutes walk would bring any one to the Institute from the most distant part of the Burgh" and that the site was chosen on environmental grounds, "free from the noise and bustle and free from the dirt, dust and smoke, so that the students of art, science and literature could pursue their studies there unmolested and free from annoyance." Early years The first Smith curator was Alexander Croall (1804–1885), a native of Angus who acquired a national reputation as a natural historian and who was also the first curator of Derby City Museum before his appointment to Stirling. As a young man, Croall had trained himself in botany through his frequent field trips. In 1855, Sir William Hooker commissioned Croall to prepare a herbarium of the plants of Braemar for Queen Victoria. Croall is remembered for his standard four volume work British Sea Weeds: Nature Printed published in 1860 and illustrated by W. G. Johnston. Such was his passion for sea weed that he had the nickname ‘Roosty Tangle.’ Working with Stirling High School art master Leonard Baker, Croall mounted an exhibition of contemporary art in 1878. Out of this grew the Stirling Fine Art Association. Croall also established the Stirling Field Club whose members helped build up the collections of the Smith Institute. In the early years, the Field Club met in the Smith and the successes of the museum are recorded in the printed transactions of the society 1878-1938. When Croall died, the Trustees appointed his son-in-law James Sword, who had been working in the County Council Office, as curator. During Sword's curatorship (1885–1921), the specialist history and antiquities collections were built up through small but significant purchases and donations. Sword was a keen natural historian and sportsman with skills in taxidermy. Sword created the large collection of stuffed birds and animals and put together the collection of communion tokens. He also did much to improve the grounds, making pavements, concrete kerbings, and bases for the iron railings. Stirling Fine Art Association exhibitions A regular feature of the Smith's programme between 1881 and 1938 was the three yearly Stirling Fine Art Association Exhibitions. There were eighteen of these exhibitions in all, usually running from January to March. Many of the best known names in the Scottish art world exhibited at the Smith, including Cadell, McTaggart, Bessie MacNicol, Robert Gemmell Hutchison and Anne Redpath. The local