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Some Significant Scots IISaint Margaret (c. 1045 - 1093) re-founded Iona monasteryWilliam Kidd (Captain Kidd) (1645-1701) Infamous pirate Rob Roy MacGregor (1671 - 1734) cattle thief and Jacobite Alexander Selkirk (1676 - 1721) "Robinson Crusoe". Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) (1720-1788) The "Young Pretender" Flora MacDonald (1722 - 1790) helped Bonnie Prince Charlie to safety James Boswell (1740 - 1795) Biographer and Traveller Patrick Ferguson (1744-1780) inventor of the breech load rifle John Paul Jones (1747 - 1792) established the U.S. Navy David Livingstone (1813 - 1873) Explorer and medical missionary Sir John Alexander MacDonald (1815 - 1891) First Prime Minister of Canada Allan Pinkerton (1819 - 1884) detective, Head of U.S. Secret Service 1861-62 William Topaz McGonagall (1830 - 1902) "The World's Worst Poet" Sir James Barrie (1860 - 1937) Author Best known for the creation of Peter Pan Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 - 1928) Architect and Designer. Influential Glasgow designer Harry Lauder, (1870-1950) Music Hall entertainer Robert Watson-Watt (1892- 1973), pioneer of radar Hugh MacDiarmid (1892- 1978), poet John Reith (1889 – 1971), pioneer of the BBC St. Margaret of Scotland  Born about 1045, died 16 Nov., 1092, was a
daughter of Edward
"Outremere", or "the Exile", by Agatha, kinswoman of Gisela, the wife
of St. Stephen of Hungary. She was the granddaughter of Edmund
Ironside. A constant tradition asserts that Margaret's father and his
brother Edmund were sent to Hungary for safety during the reign of
Canute, but no record of the fact has been found in that country. The
date of Margaret's birth cannot be ascertained with accuracy, but it
must have been between the years 1038, when St. Stephen died, and 1057,
when her father returned to England. It appears that Margaret came with
him on that occasion and, on his death and the conquest of England by
the Normans, her mother Agatha decided to return to the Continent. A
storm however drove their ship to Scotland, where Malcolm III received
the party under his protection, subsequently taking Margaret to wife.
This event had been delayed for a while by Margaret's desire to entire
religion, but it took place some time between 1067 and 1070.In her position as queen, all Margaret's great influence was thrown into the cause of religion and piety. A synod was held, and among the special reforms instituted the most important were the regulation of the Lenten fast, observance of the Easter communion, and the removal of certain abuses concerning marriage within the prohibited degrees. Her private life was given up to constant prayer and practices of piety. She founded several churches, including the Abbey of Dunfermline, built to enshrine her greatest treasure, a relic of the true Cross. Her book of the Gospels, richly adorned with jewels, which one day dropped into a river and was according to legend miraculously recovered, is now in the Bodleian library at Oxford. She foretold the day of her death, which took place at Edinburgh on 16 Nov., 1093, her body being buried before the high altar at Dunfermline. In 1250 Margaret was canonized by Innocent IV, and her relics were translated on 19 June, 1259, to a new shrine, the base of which is still visible beyond the modern east wall of the restored church. At the Reformation her head passed into the possession of Mary Queen of Scots, and later was secured by the Jesuits at Douai, where it is believed to have perished during the French Revolution. According to George Conn, "De duplici statu religionis apud Scots" (Rome, 1628), the rest of the relics, together with those of Malcolm, were acquired by Philip II of Spain, and placed in two urns in the Escorial. When, however, Bishop Gillies of Edinburgh applied through Pius IX for their restoration to Scotland, they could not be found. The chief authority for Margaret's life is the contemporary biography printed in "Acta SS.", II, June, 320. Its authorship has been ascribed to Turgot, the saint's confessor, a monk of Durham and later Archbishop of St. Andrews, and also to Theodoric, a somewhat obscure monk; but in spite of much controversy the point remains quite unsettled. The feast of St. Margaret is now observed by the whole Church on 10 June. St Margaret's Chapel can be seen at Edinburgh Castle William Kidd (Captain Kidd) (1645-1701)  William Kidd was born in Scotland in 1645. there
is nothing known about
his mother but his father was a minister. His first ship was the
Antigua. When Captain Kidd was a pirate hunter, he went to New York to
load up on supplies. There he met Sarah Bradley Cox Oort. Later they
got married and had two daughters: Elizabeth and Sarah Kidd. After Kidd
got married, he started pirate hunting again with a new ship, the
Adventure Galley. This new ship had 70 men and 36 cannons.Life on the
Adventure Galley was not easy. There was no protection from the heat or
cold. Sometimes there was no wind, so the ship would not move for two
or three days. Sometimes people got sick and died before they could get
to land. It took a long time before Captain Kidd captured his first
ship. So, as far as pirates go, he was not successful. While out at sea, Captain Kidd and his crew went a very long time without any prize money. At the same time, they had to continue to pay for supplies for the ship. Finally, the ship's gunner, William Moore, challenged Captain Kidd's leadership. The men were frustrated about being so close to ships and not taking any action. In the heat of the argument, Captain Kidd smashed a bucket on Moore's head, and a day later Moore died of a fractured skull. When Kidd returned to New York City, he was arrested and sent to England to stand trial for piracy and the murder of William Moore. He was found guilty on all charges and was hanged on May 23, 1701. Some of his treasure was later recovered on Gardiners Island off Long Island, New York. Rob Roy MacGregor (1671 - 1734)  Notorious cattle thief and Jacobite Guerilla.
Walter Scott much
exaggerated MacGregor's fame, painting him as a defender of the
Highland way of life.Rob Roy MacGregor was the second son of Donald MacGregor at Inverlochaig at the head of Loch Doine. His life as an outlaw started when he was unable to repay money that he had borrowed form the Duke of Montrose to fund his growing cattle trade. The Duke seized his lands and property and Rob Roy fled with his debt unpaid. From this time onwards Rob Roy and the followers he had gathered, at one time as many as 500 men, profited from raiding lands of the Duke and those of his neighbours. Though he relieved many of their property it is said that he was never brutal or cruel with his victims and never stole from the common man, there was after all no profit from robbing a poor man. Montrose captured Rob Roy but he made a famous escape, with the aid of a friend in the employ of the Duke at the ford in the river near Balquidder. Rob Roy died in his home in 1734 and was buried in the small churchyard in Balquidder. Rob Roy's grave is at Balquidder 2ml West of Kingshouse Hotel on A84  Alexander
Selkirk (1676-1721)Scottish sailor, born in Largo in the Fife region. He first went to sea in 1695. In 1703 he became sailing master on the ship Cinque Ports, one of the two vessels of a privateering expedition under the English navigator William Dampier. While the expedition was near the Juan Fernández Islands, off the coast of Chile, Selkirk had a dispute with the captain of his ship. At his own request, he was put ashore in October 1704 on one of the islands. He lived alone there until rescued in February 1709 by the commander of an English privateer, the Duke. Selkirk subsequently continued his career as a sailor, and at the time of his death he was master's mate on the English man-of-war Weymouth. The story of his solitary sojourn on Más a Tierra Island (now Isla Robinson Crusoe) was related in a number of versions by early 18th-century writers such as the British essayist Sir Richard Steele. It also suggested to the English novelist Daniel Defoe the plot of his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719). Largo is a small fishing village on the Fife coast between Kirkcaldy and St Andrews Charles Edward Stuart (1720-1788)  Stuart, Charles Edward, called The Young
Pretender, The Young
Chevalier, and Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-88), claimant to the British
throne who led the Scottish Highland army in the Forty-five Rebellion.The son of James Francis Edward Stuart and grandson of James II of England, Charles Edward was born December 31, 1720, in Rome. In 1744, after his father had obtained the support of the French government for a projected invasion of England, Charles Edward went to France to assume command of the French expeditionary forces. Unfavorable weather and the mobilization of a powerful British fleet to oppose the invasion led to cancellation of the plan by the French government. Charles Edward persisted in his determination to drive George II from the British throne, however, and in 1745 he arrived in Scotland, where a number of Highland clans came to his assistance. He took Edinburgh, defeated a British force at Prestonpans, and advanced as far south as Derby, England, before being forced to retreat. In April 1746, however, his forces were utterly routed at Culloden Moor. He was hunted as a fugitive for more than five months, but the Highlanders never betrayed him, and he escaped to France in September 1746. Two years later he was expelled from that country in accordance with one of the provisions of the second Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which stipulated that all members of the house of Stuart were to be driven from France. For a number of years Charles Edward wandered about Europe. Secretly visiting London in 1750 and in 1754, he attempted without success on both occasions to win support for his cause. In 1766, on his father's death, Charles Edward returned to Italy, where he spent his last years. He died in Rome on January 31, 1788.  Flora MacDonald
(1722 - 1790) It has been said that there was a brief romance between Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) and Flora MacDonald of Benbecula during the summer of 1746. The 'romance' being in the nervous and brave adventure as opposed to long tender looks between the two chief players. For two months Charles, being on the run, had been flitting from hiding place to hiding place in the Outer Isles before he and Flora met. Now had it not been for a Kinswoman of Flora's the two may never have met at all! There were three ways of regarding the Prince of Scotland; there were the heart-loyal people who believed implicitly in father's divine Right to be King and were prepared to spill their last drop of blood for him; there were those who found the whole escapade frightening and unsettling after 30 years of the Hanovers and either fought firmly against the Jacobites or subscribed to letters of gratitude and hero-worship sent in their name to the man others called 'Butcher Cumberland'; the third group were honest people, content enough with the stodgy Georges who had given them a kind of peace, people who had kin serving in their armies or in the King's Government, but who would not have sent to death a bonnie Stuart beauty like the Pretender Prince, not for all the ransom money offered by their government. Now Flora MacDonald was of the last ilk. She was not pinning away for the Bonnie Prince but deeply in love with her husband to be Allan MacDonald who was a redcoat officer throughout the campaign. As her foster-father, Clanranald, was also in command of King George's troopers on Benbecula. Flora would never have seen the Prince Betrayed though she sympathized not with the Jacobites. It came about one day that Flora was asked to do more than just 'Not Betray' the Bonnie Prince as she was young, healthy, full of spirit and practical she seemed, to those on the inside, to be the most likely young woman on the island to guide Charles on the next perilous stage of his journey to find refuge on the mainland. When a Captain of the Troop first approached her she prudently refused. It was decided. Flora and Lady Clanranald prepared the clothing for her big, rawboned Irish Maid 'Betty Burke'. The gowns, the petticoats, the snood, cloak and white cap were a perfect fit, all was well bar the big clumsy boots which almost gave the game away. The stage was set. June 20th 1746 was the day that the young Prince and Flora finally met and after a week of hiding they were ready to leave. Horror struck as news reached them that General Campbell had landed on the island with orders to search for the escaping Prince, and bring him down! But whether the General was tired or unbecoming of his role as hunter, or whether he simply hated traitors no one knows, but he disregarded the advice from the local Reverend Mr Macauley as to the residence of the Prince - and did not complete his orders. When finally the boat left, Miss Flora MacDonald - Neil MacDonald - and the strange looking 'Betty Burke' slipped away into the night across the Minch. As for General Campbell, well he was no where to be seen, or at least no where near the fleeing Prince. And so the story ends, Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped the red coats under command of General Campbell. Some folks say, or would like to think, that a romance had blossomed between young Flora and the Bonnie Prince, but if one thing is true it is this: whether there was a love between the two, or whether Flora had converted to the Jacobite cause, simply knowing that she did indeed put her life on the line for the fleeing Prince is romance enough for most. Flora's grave is on The Isle of Skye James Boswell (1740 - 1795) Best remembered today as friend and biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson, Boswell was an extraordinary figure of eighteenth-century society. Vain yet good-natured, foolish yet charming, he was also conceited and a hypochondriac with a drinking problem. He forced himself upon eminent people, and bragged about the great men he knew. David Hume thought him a bit crazy. Yet for years Boswell moved in the same circles as Sheridan, Goldsmith, Rousseau, Voltaire and Walpole. And he was an inveterate notetaker. Boswell, born in Edinburgh, was the son of Alexander Boswell, an advocate who some years later was elevated to the bench of the Court of Session and took the judicial title of Lord Auchinleck, after the family estate in Ayrshire. At the University young James studied law but his heart was never in it - to his father's irritation he preferred high life in London and travel in Europe. In London, Boswell ("Bozzy" to all his friends) shamelessly badgered his contacts for an introduction to Dr Johnson. When they eventually met in 1763, the two men rapidly became friends. From the very first, the young Scot made notes of the great man's conversation, Johnson encouraging him to do so. Boswell married in 1769. His wife was a sensible woman and extraordinarily patient with her gadabout husband. She did not share his enthusiasm for Johnson. Boswell entertained Johnson in James's Court, Lawnmarket, in 1773 when the great man arrived in Edinburgh to begin their famous journey to the Hebrides. Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides was not published until 1786, a year after Johnson's death. His Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791, was an immediate success. A perceptive observer blessed with a retentive memory, Boswell's narrative has dramatic power. These gifts and his industry have given us an incomparable picture of his times. Patrick Ferguson (1744-1780) Ferguson began his career, aged 15, as Cornet in the Royal North British Dragoons (Scots Greys), encouraged by his uncle Gen. James Murray. After training, he was sent to Germany in 1761, where he served in the Seven Years' War, until illness left him with a lame leg, which gave him years of intermittent trouble. He then served with his regiment on garrison duty around Britain. He visited France twice in 1766. In 1768, he bought a Captaincy in the 70th Foot, and spent 3 years in the Caribbean. He returned to Britain in 1772. A brilliant marksman with innovative ideas on light infantry tactics, he improved Chaumette's breechloading mechanism, already used in sporting guns, for use in a military rifle. The Ferguson Rifle was successfully tested, at his own expense, in 1776. With such a weapon, light infantry troops would be able to continue loading and firing without breaking cover or while lying prone. Appointed Captain Commandant of his own corps, armed with Ferguson rifles, he was sent to North America in spring 1777. The green-clad rifle company served in New Jersey, before sailing to the Chesapeake in August 1777 to take part in Howe's campaign to capture Philadelphia. They performed well, and Howe, impressed, assured Ferguson that the little corps of 100 men would be increased - but tragedy intervened. In their only major engagement at Brandywine on 11 September 1777, Ferguson had the chance to shoot a senior-looking Rebel officer, who was riding out with a French hussar as escort, but, as he later wrote, the idea of shooting in the back someone who was going about his duties so coolly, and did not pose a threat, "disgusted" him. Even when told next day that the officer in question was Washington, he did not regret his chivalry. 54 years later, Fenimore Cooper claimed his father-in-law, De Lancey, then serving with Ferguson, had said the officer involved was Pulaski, not Washington, and that the incident happened after Ferguson was maimed, not before - but this is contradicted, nearer the time, by Ferguson himself, and by the extent of his injuries. It is possible that Pulaski may have been the French hussar. It was moments after sparing these horsemen that Ferguson was gravely wounded - shot through the right elbow-joint. For 8 months, in Philadelphia, he suffered numerous agonising operations to remove bone splinters, under threat of amputation - or death. In letters home, dictated or written left-handed, he joked bravely about his plight and made wisecracks about the surgeons who argued whether his arm should belong to him or "the worms". He kept his arm, but it was permanently crippled. The plans for augmenting his rifle company had to be curtailed. The army gave higher priority to making more of the less expensive, general service weapons, and the corps was disbanded. There is no need to advance any conspiracy theories about this: the corps had been an experiment, and at the time it seemed unlikely that Ferguson would ever be fit for service again. However, he was tougher than he looked. Undeterred, he learned to fence and shoot with his left hand. By autumn 1778, Ferguson, nicknamed "The Bulldog" for his tenacity, was leading daring raids, such as that against the privateer base, Little Egg Harbor, in NJ. As commander of Stony Point in 1779, he designed improvements to the fortifications. He also wrote proposals to curtail marauding against civilians. He was commissioned Major in the 71st Regt. (Fraser's Highlanders), and at the turn of 1779-80, was posted South in the campaign for the Carolinas. In March 1780, at MacPherson's Plantation, near Charleston, Ferguson was bayoneted through his good arm in a 'friendly fire' incident involving Charles Cochrane and the British Legion infantry. For 3 weeks he rode with the reins in his mouth, propped up in the saddle by his orderlies. With the capture of Charleston, Gen. Sir Henry Clinton appointed him Inspector of Militia, to recruit and train local Loyalists. He gave up a brevet Lieutenant Colonelcy to do so. Recognising that the war in the South was a civil war, he tried to win people over to the Loyalist cause, visiting their houses and talking to them. In autumn 1780, Ferguson warned the 'Overmountain' men to desist from rebellion or he would bring fire and sword down upon them, and hang their leaders. The Rebels took up the challenge: to hunt down Ferguson. There was no question of taking him alive. The counter-sign was "Buford" - in revenge for the losses at Waxhaws. When Ferguson learned of the enemy's advance, he issued an impassioned proclamation to rally the local Loyalists, and began to withdraw towards Cornwallis' base in Charlotte. On 6 October, he encamped on King's Mountain, expecting reinforcements - but some messages were intercepted, and those which reached Cornwallis were not dealt with immediately, because of illness. On 7 October 1780, the Loyalists made their stand when the Rebels surrounded them in a surprise attack. In a desperate struggle, Patrick Ferguson, the only British serviceman in the battle, fought heroically, until he was shot from his horse. His slight body, which had overcome so much pain and disability, was torn by at least 8 bullets. He died within minutes, without regaining consciousness. Rebel fire continued for some time after the white flag was raised. The subsequent abuse of the prisoners, several of whom were hanged and others hacked at with swords on the march up country, brought the Rebels no glory. Ferguson's corpse was brutally treated, and buried under a cairn on the hillside. Legend has it that his girlfriend, Virginia Sal, shot early in the battle, shares his grave. Reinforcements arrived 3 days too late, and news of their "gentle Pattie"'s death reached his widowed mother and siblings in Scotland shortly before Christmas, 1780.  John Paul Jones
(1747 - 1792)John Paul Jones was born on July 6, 1747, in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. He was the son of a Scottish gardener and was originally named John Paul. At the age of 12 he entered the British merchant marine and went to sea for the first time, as a cabin boy. He sailed aboard merchantmen and slavers, becoming a first mate on a slaver brigantine by 1766 and receiving his first command in 1769. In 1773, as the commander of a merchant vessel, he killed a mutinous crewman at Tobago in the West Indies and, rather than stay in prison and wait for trial, he fled to North America. From that point the British considered him to be a pirate. A fugitive from British justice, he attempted to conceal his identity by adding the surname of Jones. At the outbreak of war with Britain in 1775, John Paul Jones went to Philadelphia, and, with the help of two friendly members of the Continental Congress, obtained a lieutenant's commission in the Continental Navy. The following year he became captain of the sloop Providence. In his first adventure aboard the Providence he destroyed the British fisheries in Nova Scotia and captured 16 British prize ships. In 1777 he took command of the sloop Ranger. Sailing to France in 1778, Jones received from the French the first salute given to the new American flag by a foreign warship. During the spring he terrorized the coastal population of Scotland and England by making daring raids ashore and destroying many British vessels. His reputation in Paris greatly enhanced, Jones received from the French government a converted French merchantman, the Duras, which he renamed Bonhomme Richard (Poor Richard) in honour of Benjamin Franklin. Jones was then promoted to commodore and placed in command of a mixed fleet of American and French ships. Setting sail at the head of this small squadron on Aug. 14, 1779, he captured 17 merchantmen off the British coast and, on September 23, fell in with a convoy of British merchant vessels escorted by H.M.S. Serapis and Countess of Scarborough. Challenging Serapis, Jones deftly manoeuvred Bonhomme Richard alongside the larger British vessel and lashed the two ships together. With the muzzles of their guns touching, the two warships fired into each other's insides. Although his smaller vessel was on fire and sinking, Jones rejected the British demand for surrender; "I have not yet begun to fight," he replied. More than three hours after the bloody battle began, Serapis surrendered, and Jones took command of it. Although hailed as a hero in both Paris and Philadelphia, Jones encountered such stiff political rivalry at home that he never again held a major American command at sea. In 1788, Russian Empress Catherine II (The Great) appointed him rear admiral in the Russian navy. He took a leading part in the Black Sea campaign against the Ottoman Turks. Jealousy and political intrigue among his Russian rivals prevented him from receiving proper credit for his successes and resulted in his discharge. In 1790 he retired and went to live in Paris. In 1792 Jones was appointed U.S. Consul to Algiers, but on July 18 of that year he died before the commission arrived. He was buried in Paris, but in 1905 his remains were removed from his long-forgotten grave and brought to the United States where, in 1913, they were finally interred in the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel at Anapolis, Maryland.  David
Livingstone (1813 - 1873) Dr. David Livingstone (1813-1873) was one of the greatest explorers of the African continent, along the way pioneering the abolition of the slave trade. When no one had heard from him for several years while he was exploring the interior of the continent in the 1860s, his long absence became a matter of international concern, and the New York Herald sent explorer Henry M. Stanley to find him in 1869. Stanley finally found Livingstone in November 1871 in a small town on Lake Tanganyika. He greeted Livingstone with the famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." Few Europeans have contributed as much to the exploration of Africa as the gentle Scottish missionary named David Livingstone. Livingstone was a curious combination of missionary, doctor, explorer, scientist and anti-slavery activist. He spent 30 years in Africa, exploring almost a third of the continent, from its southern tip almost to the equator. He was the first white man to see Victoria Falls and though he never discovered the source of the Nile, one of his goals, he eliminated some possibilities and thereby helped direct the efforts of others. In 1865, at age 52, Livingstone set out on his last and most famous journey. He soon lost his medicine, animals and porters, but struggled on almost alone. At a village on the Lualaba River he witnessed the slaughter of villagers by slave traders. The letter he sent home describing the event so infuriated the public that the English government pressured the Sultan of Zanzibar to stop the slave trade. The pressure was only partially successful. On Nov. 10, 1871 in the village of Ujiji, on the east side of Lake Tanganyika, Livingstone encountered Henry Stanley, who had been sent by the New York Herald Tribune newspaper to find and help him. With Stanley's supplies Livingstone continued his explorations, but he was weak, worn out and suffering from dysentery. Then, on the morning of April 30, 1872, his two African assistants found him kneeling at his bedside, dead. They dried his body and carried it and his papers on a dangerous 11-month journey to Zanzibar, a trip of 1,000 miles. From there his body was taken to England. Blantyre is on Junction of A724 & A725  Sir
John Alexander Macdonald, 1815-1891First Prime Minister of Canada. Born in Glasgow, Scotland on the 11th of January, 1815. He has been described as a lively youth, a good scholar, and a voluminous reader. His qualities of a good memory for faces and names, a frank and cordial manner of speech, a willingness to say yes rather than no and self-confidence brought him early into the political field. After the Upper Canada election of 1854 he took office as attorney-general west and became an influential legislator, in the prime of life and fullest measure of his intellectual power. His country has advanced under his care; that though the public debt is large, there is a great deal to show for it. The road (the Canadian Pacific Railway) must be a triumphant financial success, as well as of advantage to the great country through which it takes its course. It is a triumph of Canadian enterprise, energy and liberality, and has directed to the Dominion admiring eyes in every corner of the globe. The British North America Act is a bundle of compromises put together to bring the provinces together, and not meant to be permanent. If Sir John should live to assist in revising its terms it will be a happy augury of success. In the settlement of difficulties at various periods with the United States his influence has been wholly for the good. This was manifested particularly in the Treaty of Washington of 1871. "For forty years" (says a writer) Sir John has been "a representative of the people in parliament, for thirty years the trusted and beloved leader of the great Conservative party, and for twenty-five years the premier of the Dominion of Canada". His own words in 1873, "there does not exist in Canada a man who has given more of his time, more of his heart, more of his wealth, or more of his intellect and powers, such as they may be, for the good of this Dominion of Canada." Allan Pinkerton, 1819-84  Scottish-American detective. Born in
Glasgow, Scotland, Pinkerton came
to the United States and settled near Chicago in 1842. While engaged in
business as a barrel maker in 1846, he captured a gang of
counterfeiters and was consequently elected county sheriff. In 1850 he
organized Pinkerton's National Detective Agency and was appointed the
first city detective in Chicago. The recovery of a large sum of money
stolen from the Adams Express Company and the discovery of a plot to
murder Abraham Lincoln in 1861 made his reputation. During the American
Civil War he organized the secret service of the U.S. Army. During the
railroad strikes of 1877, his agency provided strike-breakers. His
books include Strikers, Communists and Tramps (1878) and Thirty Years a
Detective (1884). William Topaz McGonagall
(1830 - 1902)William McGonagall is Dundee's best remembered nobody. He was a man without talent who thought he was a great poet and tragedian and only needed an opportunity to prove it. This made him the perfect target for practical jokers who abounded in his day. He was engaged to give entertainments in small halls just so his audience could make a goat of him. His teetotal drink was spiked with alcohol. McGonagall had passed middle life before he got the idea he had been visited by the muse. He was born in Edinburgh in 1825 and grew up in Dundee, to which his father moved in search of work. William also laboured long hours in the weaving trade. All his life he was the butt of cruel jokes, but his faith in himself could not be shaken. His remains were dropped into a paupers' grave nearly a hundred years ago, but his memory holds up. All his poems have been published and so are there to be judged: they have, if nothing else, the quality of inimitability. Until earlier this year his name and portrait flourished over a public house in one of Dundee's main roads and a McGonagall Society endures. He claims a place on library shelves because his indomitable spirit appealed to authors and essayists. He made a number of courageous journeys, courageous in respect they were made by a person whose means were generally nil. He went to Balmoral, 50 odd miles, on foot, in the hope of seeing Queen Victoria. He got no further than the gate and was told never to come back. To London, then by sea, lured by forged invitations and, to cap it all, to New York, crossing the ocean in the steerage class and arriving with eight shillings. The streets of New York were not paved with gold for him, and in no time he was appealing to a Dundee benefactor to get him back home.  Sir James Barrie (1860 -
1937) James Matthew Barrie was born in 1860 in Scotland. For the first six years of his life, he lived in the shadow of his elder brother David. Just before his fourteenth birthday, David was killed in a skating accident. Barrie soon realised that, by dying so young, David would remain a boy forever in the minds of all those who had known him. If Peter Pan had grown up then he would be in his nineties today. On average there are 25 productions of Peter Pan in Britain at Christmas. In France, Alain Marcel once staged a high-tech musical version with lasers and members of the cast flying over the audience. In 1897, Barrie was a successful writer both in Britain and the United States. He was married to the actress Mary Ansell but they had no children. This didn't stop him from meeting children. One of these was a four-year-old girl called Margaret who called Barrie "my friendy". Because she couldn't pronounce her r's, the word "friendy" often sounded like "fwendy" or "wendy". She died when she was six but Barrie immortalised her in Peter Pan by calling his heroine Wendy, a name that he created. Barrie's London home was very close to Kensington Gardens and it was here that he first met the Llewellyn Davies boys - George, Jack and Peter. He described their mother as "the most beautiful creature I had ever seen" and soon he was a frequent visitor to their house where he would tell the boys stories. One of these stories was about the youngest boy, Peter, who, according to Barrie, would one day fly away to Kensington Gardens so that he might be a boy forever. When children died, Peter would take them on a journey to a place called Never Never Land. When George heard the story, he said that "dying must be an awfully big adventure!". Barrie wrote the words down. They would later became the most famous words spoken in Peter Pan. Barrie wrote the story several times before he decided to turn it into a play in 1903. The play's producer thought it would be a disaster but the story of The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up was an instant success. Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 - 1928)  Born in Glasgow on 7 June 1868, Charles Rennie
Mackintosh trained as an
architect in a local firm and studied art and design at evening classes
at the Glasgow School of Art. For 20 years he worked as an architect/designer in Glasgow where all his best known work was created and where much of it still remains, yet he left Glasgow in search of success and died in London in virtual obscurity. It is perhaps ironic that he was given at the time, so little recognition by his native city, for Glasgow of the late l9th and early 20th centuries was the centre of a progressive movement in painting and the decorative arts. AT art school, Mackintosh and his friend and colleague Herbert MacNair met the artist sisters Margaret and Frances Macdonald. These four artists collaborated on designs for furniture, metalwork and illustration, developing a distinctive imagery of weird, abstracted female figures and metamorphic lines reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley. Their style earned them the nickname of the 'Spook School' and their work, particularly in England, was treated with suspicion because of its decadent influence of Continental art nouveau. The majority of Mackintosh's work was created, with the help of a small number of patrons, within a short period of intense activity between 1896 and 1910. Francis Newbery helped Mackintosh to secure the prestigious commission to design the new Glasgow School of Art (now known as the Mackintosh Building); for Miss Kate Cranston he designed a series of Glasgow tea room interiors and the businesmen William Davidson and Walter Blackie commissioned large private houses, 'Windyhill' in Kilmacolm and 'The Hill House' in Helensburgh. In Europe, the originality of Mackintosh's style was quickly appreciated and in Germany and Austria he received the acclaim that he was never truly to gain at home. In 1900, the Mackintoshes were feted in Vienna as a result of their contribution to the 8th Vienna Secession; this led to friendships with designers such as Josef Hoffmann and the commission to design the Wamdorfer Music Salon. In 1902, the Mackintosh Room at the Turin International Exhibition was also enthusiastically received and he went on to exhibit in Moscow and Berlin. Despite this success, and with his undoubted influence abroad, Mackintosh's work met with considerable indifference at home and his career in Glasgow declined. Few private clients were sufficiently sympathetic to want his 'total design' of house and interior and he was incapable of compromise. By 1914 Mackintosh had despaired of ever receiving recognition in Glasgow and both he and Margaret moved to Walberswick on the Suffolk coastline where he painted many fine flower studies in water-colour. In 1915 they settled in London and for the next few years, Mackintosh attempted to resume practice as an architect and designer. The designs he produced at this time, for textiles, for the 'Dug-Out' Tea Room in Glasgow and the dramatic interiors for Bassett-Lowke's house in Northampton show him working in a bold new style of decoration, using primary colours and geometric motifs. It was an output of extraordinary vitality and originality which went virtually unheeded in England. In 1923, the Mackintoshes left London for the South of France where Mackintosh finally gave up all thought of architecture and devoted himself entirely to painting landscapes. He died in London, of cancer, on 10 December 1928. Harry Lauder, (1870-1950)  Sir Harry Lauder, the popular singer and
entertainer, who won
international renown, was born at Number 4 Bridge Street, Portobello.As a boy Lauder worked in a flax-spinning mill in Arbroath, where he attended school, and for a time he was a miner. It was in Arbroath that he first appeared on stage. He had a natural singing voice and a talent for composing simple and tuneful songs. His stage persona depended heavily on the kilt, a curly walking-stick, and much talk of bawbees and allusions to tight-fistedness, and Lauder's critics complained that he caricatured the Scot. Be that as it may, Lauder was just as popular in his own country as he was in England and innumerable countries overseas. Songs like Roaming in the Gloaming and Keep Right On to the End of the Road retain their magic and have become part of Scotland's folk music. He was knighted in 1919, and in 1927 received the Freedom of Edinburgh. A few years ago, when the new Portobello Bypass was inaugurated, it was named Sir Harry Lauder Road. Robert Watson-Watt (1892- 1973)  Sir Robert Watson-Watt was born in Brechin,
Angus and was educated at
Damacre School in Brechin and Brechin High School. He graduated with a
BSc(engineering) in 1912 from University College, Dundee which was then
part of the University of St Andrews. Following graduation he was
offered an assistantship by Professor William Peddie who excited his
interest in radio waves.In 1915 Watson-Watt started as a meteorologist at the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough with the aim of applying his knowledge of radio to locate thunderstorms so as to provide warnings to airmen. During this period Watson-Watt recognised the need for a rapid method of recording and display of radio signals and in 1916 he proposed the use of cathode ray oscilloscopes for this purpose, however these did not become available until 1923. In 1924 Watson-Watts work moved to Slough where the Radio Research Station had been formed and in 1927, following an amalgamation with the National Physics Laboratory (NPL), he became Superintendent of an outstation of the NPL at Slough. After a further re-organisation in 1933 Watson-Watt became Superintendent of a new radio department at the NPL in Teddington. Following an approach from H.E. Wimperis of the Air Ministry, enquiring about the feasibility of producing a 'death ray', Watson-Watt, with the help of his assistant Arnold Wilkins, drafted, in February 1935, a report titled 'The Detection of Aircraft by Radio Methods'. This was presented to the newly formed committee for the scientific survey of air defence, chaired by Sir Henry Tizard, and on 26th of February 1935 a trial took place using the BBCs short-wave (about 50 metres wavelength) radio transmitter at Daventry against a Heyford Bomber. The trial was a success and on 1st September 1936 Watson-Watt became Superintendent of a new establishment under the Air Ministry, Bawdsey Research Station in Bawdsey Manor near Felixstowe. The pioneering work that Watson-Watt managed at this establishment resulted in the design and installation of a chain of radar stations along the East and South coast of England in time for the outbreak of war in 1939. This system, known as Chain Home and Chain Home Low, provided the vital advance information that helped the Royal Air Force to win the Battle of Britain. Sir Robert Watson-Watt died at Inverness on the 5th December 1973 Hugh MacDiarmid (1892- 1978)  Hugh MacDiarmid was born Christopher Murray
Grieve on 11th August 1892
in Langholm, Dumfriesshire. He derived much of his future radicalism
from his father, a rural postman, and from the fiercely independent
tradition of the burgh. At Langholm Academy he was taught by Francis
George Scott, the composer who was later to set to music so many of his
lyrics. When Grieve was a pupil-teacher in Edinburgh his literary
abilities were encouraged by George Ogilvie, whose advice he sought and
generally accepted over many years. After the death of his father, in
1911, Grieve turned to journalism. He served in the RAMC from 1915 to
1920, and eventually found himself in 1921 editor-reporter of the
Montrose review. In Montrose he threw himself into the political life of the community, and from Montrose he edited and published the three issues of Northern numbers, representative collections of contemporary Scottish poetry, and a remarkable series of periodicals, of which the first was the most important. The Scottish chapbook proclaimed its editor's belief in the possibility of a great Scottish Literary Renaissance; its motto was "Not Traditions-Precedents". It was in the first number of the Chapbook (August 1922) that Hugh MacDiarmid made his appearance, as the author of a semi-dramatic study, Nisbet, but the third number printed a poem by Hugh MacDiarmid, The Watergaw, which had already appeared anonymously the month before in an article of Grieve's in the Dunfermline Press. Grieve's first original book, Annals of the five senses (1923), was also published from the author's home in Montrose. It is dedicated to John Buchan, who two years later provided the preface to MacDiarmid's first volume of poetry, Sangschaw. A perceptive reviewer recognized that MacDiarmid was writing: ... in the belief that Scotland still has something to say to the imagination of mankind, something that she alone among the nations can say only in her native tongue. A Drunk man looks at the thistle, which is generally considered the poet's greatest achievement, appeared in 1926. Here exquisite lyrics are integrated into the erratic progression and glorious illogicality of the drunk man's wayward thought. While MacDiarmid was writing and publishing these poems Grieve was contributing to the Scottish educational journal a notable series of articles. These Contemporary Scottish studies gave a new perspective on the literary scene in Scotland, attacking almost every respected member of the establishment. They were published as a book in 1926, and fifty years later were reprinted by the Journal with the "furious and fascinating" correspondence they had immediately evoked. MacDiarmid's First hymn to Lenin, a poem which greatly influenced the English poets sympathetic to Communism: Auden, Spender, and Day Lewis, was published in 1931. In that same year Grieve's wartime marriage ended in divorce. His second marriage, to Valda Trevlyn, began a partnership that endured. The Grieves moved in 1933 to the Shetland island of Whalsay, which was their home for the next nine years. Surmounting the difficulties of poverty and remoteness MacDiarmid produced in 1934 three important books: a miscellany, Scottish scene, in collaboration with Lewis Grassic Gibbon, a collection of essays, At the sign of the thistle; and a further volume of poems, Stony limits, in which he moved towards a new use of English. In 1936 Scottish eccentrics appeared, of which a friend commented that the book's glaring omission was a final chapter on CM Grieve; and in 1939 The Islands of Scotland, an idiosyncratic look at the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland. MacDiarmid's most individual and unusual autobiography, Lucky poet: a self-study in literature and political ideas (1943), is a fascinating and heady mixture of prose and poetry, chaotic and irritatingly repetitive, but stimulating and full of interesting ideas: a unique book. Grieve/MacDiarmid published in all some thirty major books, and he left traces of a number of unfulfilled projects, "intentions subsequently abandoned or subsumed in other works". Of these the most important is the prodigiously long poem, Mature art, of which parts were published as In Memoriam James Joyce (1955) and The Kind of poetry I want (1961). The "as-yet unpublished third volume" was to be called Impavidi Progrediamur, later given the Scots title, Haud forrit. MacDiarmid's poems in Scots range widely both in form and in imaginative intensity: there are the deceptively simple, the humorous, the powerfully realized, the hauntingly beautiful, the richer linguistically, such as Water music (one of his many tributes to James Joyce), and the later, austere Shetland lyrics in Stony limits. In Stony limits, too, in English, we find poems of political protest and propaganda along with the linguistic experiments, and the profound meditation, On a raised beach, and such gems as the well known quatrain, The Little white rose, with its echo of Yeats, another of his contemporaries with whom MacDiarmid stands comparison. MacDiarmid's later poetry may well be the kind he wanted, but not all his readers can readily accept the lengthy cataloguing of prosaic facts, the interminable quotations, the scientific data, the contradictions, yet in this "strong solution of books" we are always conscious of the poet at work and in control. MacDiarmid is a difficult poet, but he can also write simply and directly, just as the man who could be so vitriolic and opinionated an adversary was also one of the kindliest and most generous of friends. The Grieves had moved in 1951 to a cottage near Biggar, and this was the poet's home until his death on 9th September 1978. He was buried in Langholm, where a memorial sculpture now stands. John Reith (1889 – 1971)  John Reith was born Stonehaven, Scotland in
1889. After being educated
at Glasgow Academy he served an engineering apprenticeship. Reith specialized in radio communication and in December 1922 was appointed general manager of the British Broadcasting Company, an organization was set up by a group of executives from radio manufacturers. In 1927 the government decided to establish the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as a broadcasting monopoly operated by a board of governors and director general. The BBC was funded by a licence fee at a rate set by parliament. The fee was paid by all owners of radio sets. The BBC therefore became the world's first public-service broadcasting organization. Unlike in the United States, advertising on radio was banned. Reith was appointed director-general of the BBC. Reith had a mission to educate and improve the audience and under his leadership the BBC developed a reputation for serious programmes. Reith also insisted that all radio announcers wore dinner jackets while they were on the air. In the 1930s the BBC began to introduce more sport and light entertainment on the radio. The BBC began the world's first regular television service in 1936. Two years later Reith left the BBC to join Imperial Airways. On the outbreak of the Second World War the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, invited Reith to join his government. Elected to the House of Commons for Southampton, Reith was appointed as Minister of Information in January 1940. When Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain in May 1940 he appointed Reith to the post of Minister of Transport. Five months later he was given a peerage and given the job of Minister of Works and Buildings. After the war Reith served as chairman of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Board (1946-50). He also wrote two volumes of autobiography, Into the Wind (1949) and Wearing Spurs (1966). John Reith died in 1971. |
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