December

Events in Scottish History

1st December 1768: First lighthouse lit at Kinnaird Head, Fraserburgh.

2nd December 1837: Dr Joseph Bell, inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s characted “Sherlock Holmes”, born.

2nd December 1848: Mary Slessor, missionary, born at Gilcomston, Aberdeen.

3rd December 1894: Robert Louis Stevenson died in Samoa.

4th December 1649:
William Drummond, poet of Hawthornden, Midlothian, died.

5th December 1560: Francis II of France, husband of Mary Queen of Scots, dies, leading to her return, the following year, to Scotland.

6th December 1745: Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s Jacobite Army began their retreat north from Derby.

7th December 521: St Columba born.

7th December 1545: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, born.

7th December 1784: Allan Cunningham, Scottish Poet, born.

8th December 1848: Mary Queen of Scots, born at Linlithgow.

9th December 1578: Robert Kerr, 1st Earl of Ancram died after this date in poverty, in the Netherlands.

10th December 1540: Act of Annexation of the lordships, lands and castles, with pertinents of Orkney and Shetland.

Reference
Records of the Parliaments of Scotland

10th December 1747: Duncan Forbes of Culloden died. Scots statesman, and loyal to the Government, he persuaded many not to join the Jacobite cause in 1745 and also sought mercy for the Jacobites after their defeat.

10th December 1941: The sinking of HMS PRINCE OF WALES and HMS REPULSE in 1941 by Japanese aircraft off the Malayan coast in the events leading to the fall of Singapore. HMS PRINCE OF WALES had a crew of 1,612 and 20 officers, 280 sailors and 27 marines were lost. The dead included Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, CinC of the Eastern Fleet, and PRINCE OF WALES commanding officer, Capt John C. Leach. .HMS REPULSE was built on the Clyde.

11th December 1889: The Highland Brigade under Maj Gen Wauchope took part in the Battle of Magersfontein in the South African War. The Brigade included 1st Bn The Highland Light Infantry (now 2 SCOTS) 2nd Bn The Black Watch (now 3 SCOTS), 1st Gordon Highlanders and 2nd Bn The Seaforth Highlanders (now 4 SCOTS),and 1st Bn The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (now 5 SCOTS). The Brigade advanced to within 400 yards of the Boer positions when they hit a trip wire. The Boers opened fire, General Wauchope was killed and the Brigade held up by wire and rifle fire, taking heavy casualties, and ultimately withdrew. The action is remembered in the pipe tune “The Highland Brigade at Magersfontein”.

11th December 1936: Edward VIII‘s instrument of abdication took effect.

12th December 1574: Anne of Denmark, wife of James VI and I born.

13th December 1585: William Drummond, poet of Hawthornden, Midlothian, born.

14th December 1542: James V died at Falkland Palace. Regency eventually passed to his widow, Mary of Guise.

14th December 1730: James Bruce, Scots Explorer, and discoverer of the source of the Blue Nile, born at Kinnaird House in Stirlingshire.

15th December 1900: An investigation subsequently concluded that it was on this day, probably in the afternoon that the three Keepers of the year old Flannan Isles Lighthouse disappeared. The work of the forenoon had been completed and no light was visible that night. No trace of them was ever found. WW Gibson wrote an epic poem on the mystery, “Flannan Isle”.

15th December 1951: James Eric Drummond, 7th Earl of Perth, died. He was a diplomat and the first General Secretary of the League of Nations.

16th Dececember 1263: Haakon the Old of Norway, died in the Bishop’s Palace, Kirkwall,Orkney after his defeat at the Battle of Largs.

17th December 1669: Act for annexation of Orkney and Shetland to the Crown as Dependencies following centuries of dispute over the control of the Islands, which referred to previous annexation in 1540 and 1612.

Reference:
Records of the Parliaments of Scotland

17th December 1907: William Thomson, Lord Kelvin died. He was outstanding in theory as well as practice. His nephew died at sea and caused him to work for safety at sea; his compass was adopted worldwide; his tide gauge was in use for many years. He provided solutions for the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cables. A system of temperature and make of refrigerator are named after him.

18th December 1661: The “ELIZABETH” of Burntisland sank off the English Coast, returning Scottish Records to Scotland, which had been removed to the Tower of London by Cromwell in 1651.

18th December 1745: Skirmish at Clifton Moor, near Clifton, the last action on English soil, between Lord George Murray, commanding the rearguard of the Jacobite forces and the Duke of Cumberland’s advancing army left 6 Jacobites and 10 Government soldiers dead.
Ref: 1745 A Military History of the Last Jacobite Rising by Stuart Reid ISBN 1-86227-130-5

19th December 1887: Balfour Stewart, physicist, died.

20th December 1560: First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

21st December : The Winter Solstice. The gently sloping passageway entering the monumental Maeshowe chambered tomb in Orkney is aligned so that at sunset during the three weeks before and after this the shortest day of the year so the light of the setting sun shines straight down it to illuminates the back of the central chamber. The sun’s rays align with a standing stone, the Barnhouse Stone, standing 800 m SSW of Maeshowe. Built around 5,000 years ago, Maeshowe is the finest Neolithic building in North West Europe. It is a masterpiece of Neolithic design and stonework construction, not least for its use of massive individual stones.

21st December 1805: Thomas Graham, Chemist, born in Glasgow.

22nd December 1715: James Francis Edward Stuart “The Old Pretender”, landed at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, but by 10 February 1716 the Jacobite Rising of 1715 was over, and he returned to France.

22nd December 1820: Convicted “radicals” of the Radical Revolt of 1820 deported to New South Wales on the vessel “SPEKE”.

22nd December 1930: Neil Munro, novelist and poet, perhaps best known for his “Para Handy” stories, died at his home, “Cromalt” in Craigendoran, Helensburgh.

23rd December 2000: Jimmy Shand, musician and band leader, died.

24th December: William the Lion crowned at Scone. He became known as “The Lion” as he was the first to adopt the Lion Rampant as his heraldic symbol.

24th December: Christmas Eve.

25th December 1251: Alexander III knighted by Henry III of England. Born in 1241, he had become King on his father Alexander II‘s death in 1249, at the age of 7.

26th December 1251: Alexander III married to Henry III of England’s eldest daughter, Margaret. He was 10 years old.

26th December 1647: Charles I while imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight enters the Engagement with the Scots. A Scots Army was to invaded England in support of the King in exchanged for the establishment of Presbyterianism in England.

26th December 1760: “Roebucks, Garbett and Cadells”, later The Carron Company IronWorks, near Falkirk, brought its first blast furnace into operation.

26th December: Boxing Day.

27th December 1800: Dr Hugh Blair, Doctor of Divinity, died.

27th December 1927: J M Barrie’s “Peter Pan” premiered at the Duke of York Theatre, London.

28th December 1734: Rob Roy MacGregor died in Old Balquhidder Glen.

28th December 1879: The Tay Bridge Disaster. During a violent storm at night the bridge, which had only been opened just over 2 years before collapsed and a train went into the Tay, with the loss of over 70 people. There were no survivors. This disaster is remembered in William McGonagall’s poem.

29th December 1766: Charles Macintosh who patented the waterproof cloth he was using to make raincoats, born.

30th December 1915: “HMS NATAL” sank in Cromarty Harbour after an explosion in her magazine with the loss of 421 lives

31st December 1720: Charles Edward Stuart, “The Young Pretender”, “Bonnie Prince Charlie” born in Rome. It has been suggested that the Christmas Carol “Adeste Fideles”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, was a coded message to Jacobites to celebrate his birth

31st December: Hogmanay in Scotland.