Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 1 on 5/3/2002.

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Invented by...Janet Keiller

This regular look at a famous Scots invention or innovation begins with a contentious issue - Janet Keiller and the 'invention' of marmalade. We explore the myth with a little help.

Perhaps it’s a little cheeky to start the series this way, but it was too tempting to resist when preliminary research indicated that, despite Keiller company history suggesting otherwise, Janet Keiller did NOT invent marmalade – no more than the average motorist invented the internal combustion engine, anyway. Further research has shown a couple of books and a number of newspaper and magazine features have covered this in some depth, thanks to the research of historian William Mathew.

What the company James Keiller of Dundee did do, is to change and market marmalade with unprecedented success. They took a product that was not even culturally Scottish and made both Keiller and Dundee synonymous with it throughout the British Empire.

The story goes that, at some time in the 18th century, James Keiller, a Dundee grocer, heard about a Spanish ship carrying a cargo of Seville sour oranges, that had entered the Tay seeking haven from the stormy North Sea. He allegedly purchased the ship’s cargo and handed the lot over to Janet, his wife. What do you give the woman who has everything? A cargo of inedible oranges, of course. Not wanting to let the oranges go to waste, Janet experimented with the fruit and subsequently invented marmalade.

Another embellishment on this story is the fruit being carried up from the beach by Janet’s son, who was sent back to get additional oranges with his mother urging ‘Mair, ma lad!’ According to this strain of the legend, this is where the product.....

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By Janet Keiller

Section : Scottish Innovators

Page number : 82