#navalmilitary — Public Fediverse posts

Redemption in Leith: the thread about HMS Cossack

The neat, well kept war graves at Seafield Cemetery include 5 men from the destroyer HMS Cossack, who lost their lives in an accident at sea on November 7th 1939, when their ship collided with the Leith steamer Borthwick off the Isle of May.

Grave marker stones for Roy Popple and Thomas C. Richmond © SelfGrave marker stones for William. H. Clarke and Stanley Cowan © SelfFour of the war grave headstones for men of HMS Cossack at Seafield cemetery in Leith. Photos © Self

The protagonists in this accident were the Cossack, one of the Navy’s big, new “Tribal class” destroyers: two and a half thousand tons of guns and torpedoes which could cut through the sea at 36 knots (over 40mph).

Brand new, the Cossack in 1938. This photograph FL 1657 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

The other was the George Gibson & Co. steamer Borthwick, a ship built and owned in Leith which plied the North Sea on the Antwerp and Rotterdam route. She was much smaller than the big warship’,; over 100 feet shorter, about 1/4 her displacement and barely capable of double digit speeds on her single steam engine which had an output 1/300th of that of Cossack.

The Borthwick. Like many George Gibson ships she was named after connections to the works of Walter Scott and the Lothians

It was a dark winter night on the Firth of Forth and ships were showing only the bare minimum of navigation lights. The Borthwick and Cossack were on a parallel course, heading east off the Isle of May, with the destroyer overtaking the little steamer when, for reasons of his own, Captain Daniel De Pass of the Cossack turned across the path of Borthwick. De Pass had a bit of a reputation for poor seamanship, having done something like this before on pre-war exercises. The outcome was inevitable, the bows of the Borthwick cutting into the side of Cossack, right into the seamen’s mess where the men were just sitting down to dinner. Three men died where they sat. Able Seaman Heatherley and Ordinary Seaman Clarke were pulled into the cold, dark North Sea as the water rushed in to their compartment, never to be seen again. Three more men were seriously injured (Ordinary Seaman Clifford Harmer would be invalided out of the Navy with a hand injury) and those in the mess below were trapped for an hour, up to their necks in water. Their ship limped back to Leith for extensive repairs, the men boarded in the Seamen’s Mission. In an interview in 2005, a survivor – Trevor Tipping – pointed out the steel plate of the ship was only 3/8 inch thick and “folded back, like a sardine tin” when the collision happened.

The Seamen’s Mission on the Shore in Leith

The repairs – by Leith shipyard Henry Robb – took almost 2 months and cost £11,250 (£504k in 2023). Captain De Pass faced a Board of Inquiry, which put him 75% at fault. He was court martialled, relieved of his command and posted away elsewhere before taking retirement. His replacement was the dashing yet thoroughly competent Captain Philip Vian.

Sir Phillip Vian (1894-1968), by Oswald Birley, from the Britannia Royal Naval College

The men of Cossack, cooling their heels in Leith while their ship was repaired, raised a subscription to fund a memorial stoner to their lost shipmates out of their own pockets. It was erected in Seafield cemetery, and is situated by the Cossack war graves.

Memorial for the men lost on HMS Cossack in Seafield Cemetery. Photo © Self

The Borthwick was patched up and soon back on the dangerous Leith to Holland route. She was sunk 4 months later – on March 9th 1940 – by the German submarine U-14 off the River Scheldt, on her way home from Rotterdam to Leith. All 21 on board survived and were picked up. The newspapers celebrated on 11th March when news reached home that the men of the Borthwick had all been landed safely in Flushing.

Captain Simpson (right) and Chief Officer Jeffrey (left) of the Borthwick, on their return home after being sunk

Cossack did not leave Leith until 10th January, but was back 3 days later for more repairs after an embarrassing – but fortunately minor – collision with the cable laying ship Royal Scot in Leith Roads. She left again, returning to the 4th Destroyer Flotilla with Captain Vian now installed in command. But she wouldn’t be gone long and would return with the month. This time should would be an international hero, the victor of the daring “Altmark Incident“, a swashbuckling tale that can always do with retelling.

On the face of it, Altmark was a humble German merchant ship. In reality, she was a supply tanker for the Kriegsmarine – the German Navy – and had on board almost 300 British and Allied prisoners, merchant seamen whose ships had been sunk by the “pocket battleship” commerce raider Admiral Graf Spee in the South Atlantic.

A photo of the Altmark in Jøssingfjord , Norway.

The Graf Spee had been scuttled just off Montevideo after the Royal Navy had cornered her into a fight in the Battle of the River Plate on December 17th – while Cossack was laid up in a Leith drydock undergoing repairs. Before the battle she had transferred most of her prisoners to her supply ship, which was heading back to Germany. Conditions on board caused the British press to call her a “hell ship” and a “floating concentration camp“.

Admiral Graf Spee shortly after her scuttling. Toronto Telegram collection, via. University of York, Canada.

Captain Dau of the Altmark intended to sneak back home by hugging the coasts of the (then) neutral Greenland, Iceland and Norway. He had almost made it when, on Feb. 15th, reconnaissance aircraft out of RAF Leuchars spotted her in Norwegian waters off Bergen. The British destroyers HMS Ivanhoe and Intrepid from Vian’s squadron made to board her but the Altmark sought refuge in the safety of Jøssingfjord. The Royal Navy could only look on as the German ship was escorted into the fjord by the Norwegian Navy, who politely but firmly affirmed their neutrality and turned the British ships around.

HMS Intrepid attempting to board Altmark as it runs for the sanctuary of Jøssingfjord

Captain Vian, as commander of the squadron, made contact with the ancient Norwegian gunboat Kjell but was asshured that the Norwegian had searched the Altmark, that all was in order and it was a simple German merchant ship and not an armed, Kriegsmarine prison ship. Vian knew this was rubbish, but had no option but to retreat a respectful distance and to signal the Admiralty for orders.

Norwegian navy gunboat Kjell, around the time of the Altmark Incident

Further reconnaissance flights by the Royal Air Force confirmed that the Altmark was safely holed up right at the end of Jøssingfjord. Meanwhile, Vian’s signal found its way to the desk of the First Lord of the Admiralty, a man who had a reputation for sticking his oar in to operational matters and trying to direct operations from Whitehall. You might be familiar with his name, it was Winston Churchill.

Aerial photo of Altmark in Jøssingfjord.Photograph CS 24 from the collection of the Imperial War Museums

Churchill sent Vian a signal telling him that if the Altmark wasn’t escorted to Bergen for inspection under a joint Anglo-Norwegian guard, he was to board her and free the prisoners, that he had permission to use lethal force in order to do so and that he was to politely but firmly make sure the Royal Norwegian Navy butted out of matters. This was a blatant violation of Norwegian neutrality of course, but there was not a lot the little old gunboat Kjell could do to stop the Cossack beyond yell at her – Vian had permission to fire on her if they fired first, but to stop when they stopped.

And so Vian was set on a course of action and turned his ship around, entering the mouth of Jøssingfjord at 2200 hours on February 16th 1940. He once more went on board the Kjell, this time to give her Captain the ultimatum to either escort the Altmark to Bergen with him, or step aside. When he declined, Vian invited him aboard the Cossack for a grandstand view of what was about to follow, but again he declined. On board the Altmark, Captain Dau saw the threatening shape of the destroyer looming down the Fjord towards him. At first he made to ram her, but instead ended up running his ship aground instead. He next tried to dazzle the Cossack with his searchlight, but the British ship was brought skillfully alongside and in true Nelsonian fashion, a party of 2 officers and 30 men leapt across the gap and boarded the German ship. Legend has it that 4 cutlasses, kept on board for ceremonial purposes, were carried by the boarding party. If true, it would be the last boarding action in which such a weapon was known to be used in anger.

Painting of the boarding of the Altmark by Charles Pears

There was a brief skirmish on board but the German crew were soon overpowered. Just as things were almost over however, a German sailor fired at and injured a British sailor, and for his trouble 9 of his shipmates were shot and wounded in the return fire; 4 died and a further 4 were fatally wounded. Having taken the Altmark, the boarders now combed the ship looking for the captives they knew were held somewhere within. One sailor called “Any Englishmen in there?” into a dark hold and on hearing a cheer replied the immortal words “The Navy’s here! Come up out of it!“

Book cover, “The Navy’s Here” by Frischauer & Jackson

Less than two hours after she first entered the fjord, Vian’s ship was on her way out again with 299 freed prisoners on board (including one, an Indian seaman, suffering from Leprosy). She plotted a course for Leith and set off for home at top speed. The Cossack had last entered Leith with a cloud hanging over her reputation, but on her return on February 17th she did so triumphantly. The press cameras were assembled and waiting to welcome her back and to make the most out of this propaganda opportunity.

HMS Cossack coming alongside in Leith, with some of the Altmark prisoners aboard

Ambulances were ready and waiting to take the injured away to hospital while the newsreel cameras rolled.

Cossack at Leith, with assembled crowds and waiting ambulances

It was a rare bit of good news so early in the war, so reporting restrictions were not observed. The Scotsman carried a full page spread of photos. Many of those pictured coming ashore had lost all their possessions, some had been prisoners for almost 6 months and their families had no word of what had become of them. For weeks the papers were full of stories of reunions and heroes welcomes.

The former prisoners of the Altmark coming ashore at Leith. Pictures from The Scotsman, 19th February 1940

The Dundee Courier and Advertiser printed a picture of some 1940s medical care, with a nurse at Leith Hospital lighting a recuperative cigarette for Third Officer Leslie Ross of the ship Huntsman. 250 of the his companions were sent to the Eastern General Hospital in Leith for attention, with officials from the City and the Shipwrecked Mariner’s Society on hand to sort out replacement clothing, papers, money, cigarettes etc. and arrange lodging and travel. The sailor who had been suffering from Leprosy was taken to the Infectious Diseases Hospital (the “City Hospital”).

Leslie Ross in a Leith hospital, Dundee Courier, Monday 19th February 1940

In Stornoway, the Daily Record interviewed the 75 year old Elizabeth Mackenzie of Newton Street, who had not heard from her merchant seaman son – Donald Morrison – for over a year. She was making a public appeal for his whereabouts, he had last written to her over a year ago and was last known to be on the SS Newton Beech: that ship had been sunk by the Graf Spee on 5th October 1939. “I have been very worried because I am going blind, and I am living here with a brother who is over 80” she told the reporter. “I haven’t many friends, but the Lord is my friend, and that is enough.” The happy news about the safety of her son was soon brought to her by Donald Macleod, another Leodsach sailor who had been with him on the Altmark. “It is good news my boy is safe” she told the Record. Donald Murdo Macleod of Tolsta Chaolais had been on the SS Tairoa which had been intercepted by the Graf Spee in the middle of the South Atlantic on December 2nd 1939. Tairoa had been the penultimate victim of the German raider, and had managed to transmit a distress signal that eventually allowed the the Royal Navy to catch up with her assailant.

The crew of the Newton Beech rowing away from their abandoned ship towards imprisonment on the Graf Spee

Donald Morrison however seemed reluctant to return home and instead went to Hull, telling Macleod to let his mother know he “might go home later“. Instead he went back to sea. It seems the whole experience may have left an indelible mark on him and changed his character. He forfeited bail of £1 in Buckhaven on a charge of drunkeness in February 1941. He was soon in trouble again for going absent from his ship. In May 1941 he was hauled before the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth at the Police Court there, again for deserting a ship. Morrison could offer no explanation for being 31 hours overdue and potentially making his ship miss its convoy, beyond “I just had a good time, that is all“. The Master had dismissed him but told the court he was of good character and had been through “unpleasant experiences” and would gladly take him back again. It turned out Morrison had another ship sunk from underneath him recently and had once again lost all his papers and possessions. The Lord Mayor fined him £5 (half a month’s wages) and allowed him to return to his ship on account of his value to the war effort. He won’t have been the only merchant sailor in the War in the Atlantic to have an experience such as this, and in retrospect we can understand his reluctance to return to his ship and potential death and to want to have one more night of fun on earth…

Back in Leith, the Fife Free Press reported that the Altmark Incident was commemorated with the gift of £500 to the Leith Hospital by an anonymous benefactor on the condition that a bed be dedicated to HMS Cossack for rescuing the prisoners. For his “outstanding ability, determination and resource” and “for daring, leadership and masterly handling of his ship“, Captain Vian received the Distinguished Service Order medal and was promoted off of Cossack in July 1941. He would go on to have a glittering wartime career, and would retire in 1952 as Admiral of the Fleet. Cossack had an eventful 18 months after the Altmark, taking part in the 2nd Battle of Narvik and the hunt for the German Battleship Bismarck

The ship’s luck would soon run out however and she was torpedoed and sunk in October 1941 by the German submarine U-563, west of Gibraltar. In November 1941, the Edinburgh Evening News reported that three local men were missing, presumed killed, from her:

• Petty Officer Alexander Burton Colthart, 22, 20 India Place
• Petty Officer Douglas Maurice Gammack, 32 Parsons Green Terrace
• Assistant Cook Robert “Sonny” O’Hara, 23, 205 Crewe Road North

Her cat, Oskar, survived this sinking: legend has it that he had been the ship’s cat on the Bismarck and was plucked from the Atlantic by Cossack after her sinking. His name was said to have been derived from the code letter for “O” (with a German spelling) which was used to mean “man overboard“. Further legend has it that after surviving the loss of his second home he went on to serve on HMS Ark Royal and survived her sinking also. The whole thing was probably just a sailor’s yarn but Unsinkable Sam has garnered a cult following on the internet: you will find Facebook pages, pop history articles, Youtube videos and even computer game cameos in his memory.

Ship’s cat Oskar, or Unsinkable Sam.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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Finest yacht in the world: the thread about the Leith-built “Iolanda”

Today’s Auction House Artefact is a 1909 painting of the beautiful yacht Iolanda, cruising off Naples, by the artist Antonie de Simone. She was built in 1908 by Ramage & Ferguson in Leith for the wealthy American railroad and shipping financier (and yachting fanatic) Morton F. Plant, and had a long and interesting life

Iolanda, from “Steam Yachts” by Erik Hofman, 1970

At this time if you wanted one of the biggest and best steam yachts in the world you went to Messrs Cox & King of Pall Mall in London to design it, specifically their naval architect Joseph E. Wilkins. And once you had your plans you likely went to Ramage & Ferguson in Leith to have them built. The Iolanda was the largest of the vessels that came out of the Cox & King-Ramage & Ferguson partnership, being 310 feet long (94.5m) and displacing 1,823 tons (1,654 tonnes). Described as “probably the finest yacht in the world“, she could make 19 knots on her 3,500hp steam engines and with her bunkers filled with 600 tons of coal she could cruise for 6,000 nautical miles. To lengthen her endurance, she was also rigged as a schooner and could proceed under sail power alone.

Iolanda, by Antonie de Simone, 1909

That’s a very big and very fast yacht by the standards of the day – as much as now – indeed she was the tenth largest yacht on Lloyd’s Register in 1913 and the third largest in private ownership (behind that of the Vanderbilts and of Gordon Bennett of the New York Times). This was the third in a series of such yachts that Plant had gotten from Cox & King – the others being the Venetia and the Vanadis. She was crewed by a compliment of 70 and had a capacity for 80 passengers. The interiors, as you might expect, were the finest that money could buy, a Queen Anne style. Her fittings included three electrical generation plants, a 3,000 feet long (914m) string consisting of 1,500 red, white and blue lamps that could be strung from the masts, a desalination system that could produce 15 tons of fresh water per day, a special system to chill the seawater in her plumbing for cold baths and an infirmary with its own X-ray machine.

The interior of the Iolanda, from Yachting Magazine, October 1908

Morton Plant, whose sailing schooner was named Elena after the Queen of Italy, named Iolanda after the Italian Princess Royal. He was particularly proud of how big his new steam yacht’s funnel was. To demonstrate its size and to mark the occasion of the launch of the hull in Leith in February 1908, he held a party luncheon inside it for 100 guests (the funnel at this times till being on its side on the quayside). Plant. On his arrival back in the US at New London on August 29th 1908, he flew a 220-foot long pennant from the masthead.

The Iolanda in 1912

In 1909, Plant and his friends began a 33,000 mile cruise around the world that would take almost a year (including the visit to Naples as seen in the painting). He wrote and published an account of this voyage in 1911, sensibly titled The Cruise of the Iolanda. He returned from this global jolly on July 5th, 1910, but had already grown tired of his new toy and soon put it on the market. It was bought in 1911 by Mme. Elizabeth Tereshchenko, a friend of Plant and a wealthy member of the Ukrainian upper class, who spent most of her time in Cannes.

Plant and friends on deck on the Iolanda, from “Cruise of the Iolanda” by Morton F. Plant.

The Iolanda came complete with her Norwegian captain, Charles A.K. Bertun. On the outbreak of WW1, Bertrun and the yacht were stuck in Norway. As the property of an allied nation (the Russian Empire), she was secretly chartered to the British Admiralty and Bertun escaped with her to England on the pretext of going to Bergen for dry docking. The Royal Navy commissioned the yacht as a patrol vessel – work which her size and speed well suited her to. For this purpose she was given a couple of 3″ guns, and seems to have had an uneventful war.

Cross-sectional builder’s model of the Iolanda displayed at the New York Yacht Club.

Morton Plant died on 5th November 1918, just before the end of the war. His obituary noted his long list of yachts and membership of the New York, Atlantic, Corinthian (Philadelphia), Indian Harbour, Larchmont, Sea View, Royal Thames, Royal St. George and Royal Forth Yacht Clubs. When the war ended a few weeks later, Captain Bertun took possession of the Iolanda on behalf of the Tereschenko family and took her back to Leith to Ramage & Fergusons to be refitted and repaired after war service. On the death of her owner now exiled in Cannes and Monaco – she passed to Elizabeth’s son, Mykhailo Tereshchenko. Mykhailo was Russian Foreign Minister in November 1917 when he had been rounded up by the Provisional Government and locked in the St. Petersburg Citadel. He escaped from this imprisonment in 1918 and fled to Norway with the 42 carat Tereshchenko diamond, the largest blue diamond in the world. Legend says that this diamond is cursed, and this was responsible for the fall of Imperial Russia and the Tereschenko dynasty.

Photo of Mikhail Ivanovich Tereshchenko from the first edition of “Ten Days that Shook the World” (1919)

The family needed money to finance their life in exile on the French Riviera, so sold the Iolanda to the yacht brokers Camper & Nicholson in 1921 for use on the hire market. In 1927 she was purchased by Moses Taylor Pine Jr. of the National City Bank in New York. Like Morton Plant before them, the Moses Pines made an inaugural cruise and published an account of it (Diary of Happenings Aboard the Steam Yacht Iolanda, Being a More Or Less [principally Less] Veracious and Plain Account of the Adventurous Voyage Undertaken etc. etc.) Moses died, I believe, the following year, but his wife kept the yacht on for her own use. In 1939 the Admiralty once again came calling on the Iolanda, buying her off Mrs Moses through an intermediary, Mrs G. J. Guthrie Nicholson of Newport Rhode Island, reportedly for only $5. She was commissioned once again into the Royal Navy, this time as the submarine tender HMS White Bear. Her principal duties were to escort submarines heading out on, and returning from, patrols into their home bases.

HMS White Bear during World War 2, Imperial War Museum photo © IWM FL 4085

On Nov. 30th 1942, White Bear left Holy Loch in company with the submarine HMS Tuna – which she escorted as far as Wolf Rock off Cornwall – before the latter set a course for the Gironde estuary to drop off 6 Royal Marine Commandos for Operation Frankton – the Cockleshell Hero raid.

1955 film poster for the fictionalised account of Operation Frankton – “Cockleshell Heroes”

White Bear was refitted as a survey vessel in 1944 and posted to the East Indies Fleet, stationed at Colombo. She was fitted with a large and modern printing plant so that the newly surveyed charts could be sent straight to the fleet.

The printing room on HMS White Bear

She returned to the UK in 1947 and was sold, first to Burwood & Co. of London. She was scrapped in Holland in 1958 at the age of 50. A number of artefacts survived, including her clock, the ship’s bell (which sold in 2018 at auction for £1,116) and her figurehead.

The figurehead of the Iolanda, a 1928 photo

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

The mining of the “Saucy” and the “Firefly”: the thread about the WW2 loss of forty-two lives in the Forth

I was looking for something in Seafield Cemetery last week and couldn’t help but stop by the war graves. Some are for merchant seamen and many of them were from HMS Saucy, lost with all hands on this day (September 4th) in 1940. As yesterday was Merchant Navy Day, this is a doubly appropriate time to relate their story.

The Saucy was built for the Royal Navy in Hull in 1918 as a 600-ton, 155ft-long Frisky-class rescue tug. She was sold out of service in 1924 but kept her name and was requisitioned in 1939, returning to the UK from Shanghai. She was crewed by merchant seamen, serving under officers of the Royal Navy Reserve (RNR men were professional merchant naval officers who had joined the reserves to be called up in times of war).

HMS Saucy, pre-1924 postcard image

Saucy was based on the Forth at Rosyth, her duties to assist in any damaged vessels entering the estuary and was at sea on September 3rd (Merchant Navy Day and exactly 1 year into the war) when she brought in a damaged Dutch merchant ship that had been bombed by German aircraft. With this charge safely brought in, she headed back out on patrol in the early morning of the 4th. Contact was soon lost with her when she was in a position about 1.5 miles west of the island of Inchkeith; the unfortunate tug had hit a mine and gone down almost instantly, taking all 281 on board with her. It is not clear whose mine she had struck, it may have been dropped by a German aircraft, but just as likely it may have been a “friendly” mine that had broken free from its moorings and had floated further into the Firth.

“The Sea Mine”, Louis Raemaekers, 1916 © Edinburgh City Libraries

Of the crew the 3 officers were all RNR men and the 25 ratings were all merchant seamen. Eighteen came from the Devonshire fishing town of Brixham, 7 from the same extended family. Eight bodies were recovered, 5 of them of Brixham men and all were buried at Seafield – although one was never formally identified.

Sub. Lt. Francis Douglas Phillips (age 36), Fireman Cyril Harvey (age 20), and Fireman Samuel Piper (age 26)Sailor Charles Launder (age 36)Sailor Harry Nicholls (aged 30) and Sailor Thomas Lovell (aged 53)Sub Lt. David Llewellyn Thomas, age 29 and an unknown sailor from HMS Saucy

On this day in 2004, a memorial plaque was dedicated in Brixham Harbour to the men who were lost – it has 26 individual names, however different sources list 27 names and some say there were 28 on the ship’s roll. See footnote.

HMS Saucy memorial at Brixham, from War Memorials Online

A new HMS Saucy was named in her honour in 1942, an Assurance-class rescue tug. The wreck of her predecessor was marked with a buoy in 1940, but it was largely lost by 1945. Sonar surveys by the Navy in 1967 and 1871 failed to locate it, but it was found again by the minehunter HMS Sandown in 1992, and her divers explored the wreck in 1993 and found it to be remarkably intact in 15m of water, position 56° 2′ 10″N, 3° 10′ 33″W.

HMS Saucy (the 1942 replacement), on the Humber in February 1943 © IWM FL 8980

The men whose bodies were never found are further commemorated on the Liverpool Naval Memorial, which commemorates almost 1,400 merchant sailors who died serving with the Royal Navy during WW2 and have no known resting place.

1. Some sources say 26 or 27 were on the ship’s roll. Most also 7 seven men were buried at Seafield, however there is the grave of an 8th and unidentified victim also alongside. ↩︎

Alongside the men from the Saucy at Seafield lie three others who lost their lives to sea mines that year; Lt. D. B. Johnstone RNVR, Chief Petty Officer C. E. Baldwin RN D.S.M. and Sub Lt. C. Dobson RNVR. All three died on HMS Firefly in February 1940. Baldwin had earned the Distinguished Service Medal early in the war for being the first to defuse a German magnetic mine, allowing it to be captured, inspected and countermeasures devised.

Sub Lt. Carl Dobson RNVR, age 29Lt. David Johnstone RNVR, age 37 and CPO Charles Baldwin RN, age 40

Firefly was a requisitioned civilian trawler, hired from her owners as a minesweeper. Trawlers were perfect for this sort of work, which required a seaworthy vessel that could handle the towing of “sweeps” that cut mines free from their moorings before the crew destroyed them (usually by shooting it with a rifle until it exploded).

Oil painting of HMS Firefly by H. Trythall, Victoria BC, 1991

On February 3rd 1940, Firefly was in the Forth, her crew attempting to defuse a British mine that had gotten loose and was posing a hazard to shipping. These sort of mines look exactly like they do in cartoons; a buoyant, black sphere with spiky “horns” in which the detonators are mounted.

“Deadly Instruments of Modern Naval Fighting”, London Illustrated News, August 1914

Firefly was stopped in the water, her crew watching from the railings while a detachment in the row boat carefully manoeuvred alongside the mine to defuse it; dangerous but routine work. Without warning they were hit by the wake of a passing destroyer, which pushed the mine onto the boat. The horn contacted one of the boat’s oars, and 200-250lb of explosives was detonated. Everyone on the boat was killed instantly, as were all except one watching on deck (who would die the next day from his wounds). Only the 3 men in the wheelhouse and 1 in the galley survived from a crew of 18. Sadly one of the four survivors, Lt. Andrew Macgavin Maclean RNVR, would die in the Royal Infirmary two weeks later as a result of infection, he was laid to rest in Strathblane Parish Churchyard (I am indebted to Pat Davy of Strathblane Heritage Society for this information).

Remarkably, the vessel herself was largely intact – apart from damage to her superstructure – and she was towed into Leith by the minesweeping trawler HMS Wardour and repaired. She returned to service, recommissioning in June 1940, and serving out the rest of the war. Returned to her owners and renamed St. Just, she fished out of Harwich until 1961. Wardour herself was sunk by a mine she was clearing in October 1940 but her crew survived. In a curious coincidence, a previous HMS Firefly was one of the first ships to strike a naval mine (which at the time were referred to as “Infernal Machines”) when she and HMS Merlin ran into a Russian minefield off Sveaborg in the Baltic Campaign of 1855, although both survived. In another odd twist of fate, the Firth of Forth was the location of both the first loss of a ship to a torpedo in WW1 (the cruiser HMS Pathfinder), and the last such in WW2 (the Canadian steamer Avondale Park and the Norwegian collier “Sneland I).

“Merlin and Firefly Struck by Infernal Machines” Name, Rank & Resting PlaceName, Rank & Resting PlaceSub Lt. Walter AndersonSub Lt. Frederick JonesSub Lt. Francis Douglas Phillips (Seafield)Sub Lt. David Thomas (Seafield)Third Engineer Edward Pulham*Fireman John Clift*Sailor Thomas Coysh*Sailor Seymour Crang*Sailor William Cudd*Sailor Sidney Foster*Fireman Stanley Gardner*Fireman Cyril Harvey* (Seafield)Donkeyman Leonard Harvey*Fireman Roy Harvey*Sailor Charles Launder* (Seafield)Sailor Vincent Medway*Sailor Thomas Lovell* (Seafield)Sailor Samuel Piper* (Seafield)Sailor Harry Nicholls* (Seafield)Fireman Charles Roberts*Fireman Ralph Stamp*Fireman John Seaward*Sailor George HosieFireman Donald McGregor ReidSteward Donald ReidSailor Robert TomlinsonCook John StenhouseOfficers and men of HMS Saucy, lost in September 1940, asterisked names were men from BrixhamName, Rank & Resting PlaceName, Rank & Resting PlaceLt. David B. Johnstone (Seafield)Lt. Andrew Macgavin Maclean (Strathblane)Sub Lt. Norman Peat (Glasgow)Sub Lt. Geoffrey Vaughan (Bournemouth)Sub Lt. Carl Dobson (Seafield)CPO Charles Baldwin (Seafield)Engineman Benjamin Barker (Hartlepool)Seaman Henry Beavers (Preston)Second Hand John Cowie (Buckie)Seaman John Clay (Preston)Seaman Cook Walter Johnson (Great Yarmouth)Seaman Peter Reid (Buckie)Seaman Alexander Stewart (Buckie)Seaman James Stewart (Lossiemouth)Second Hand Edward Barker (Cleethorpes)Officers and men of HMS Firefly, lost in February 1940

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The ignominious end of HMS Caledonia: the thread about how the Navy’s longest ship ended up as scrap metal on the Forth seabed

Q. What was the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2?

A. As any respectable naval anorak knows, it was the 47,000t, 860ft long battleship HMS Hood, the “Mighty Hood“, pride of the fleet and largest warship afloat. Right? Or… was it the Bismarck?

HMS Hood, 1924, Allan C. Green photo

No, the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2 was the 56,500t, 956-ft long training ship HMS Caledonia; until 1936 the Cunard-White Star liner RMS Majestic, which until 1922 had been the Hamburg-Amerika liner SS Bismarck. Until 1935, the largest ship in the world

HMS Caledonia, 1937, en route from Southampton to Rosyth

The Bismarck was the 3rd and largest of three Hamburg-Amerika liners built immediately prior to WW1; the others were the Vaterland and Imperator. They were ordered to reclaim dominance and German national pride in the Transatlantic liner stakes from the British Cunard and White Star liners. They were to do this by being both the largest and grandest liners afloat. Bismarck was the last of the trio but before she was laid down, the Hamburg-Amerika line found out that the new Cunard liner Aquitania was to be longer than her, so they hastily rejigged the design to add an extra 6 feet on. They needn’t had bothered, they had made been misinformed and Aquitania actually ended up being 50ft shorter than Bismarck.

Majestic (ex-Bismarck, background) with her sisters the Cunard line’s Berengaria on the right (ex-Imperator) and United States Line’s Leviathan (ex-Vaterland) in the foreground

It was too late to change the design however and it was too late for her sister Imperator, which had been given the most embarrassingly awful nose job to lengthen her by the vainglorious addition of a massive bronze eagle figurehead which was meant to make her 1ft longer than Aquitania. Fortunately for her appearance this partially fell off during Atlantic storms within a year, and was removed.

The bronze figurehead on Imperator

Bismarck was launched in June 1914 by a granddaughter of the Iron Chancellor, but this ceremony was jinxed when she fluffed the swinging of the champagne bottle and it only broke on the second attempt: none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped in to give it his best swing. The outbreak of war found her without a purpose, and construction ground to a halt beyond maintenance work. During the war she was stripped of valuable components, wiring and piping and all her brass and copper. The incomplete hulk was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Versailles as reparations for the loss of the White Star liner Britannic (sister of Titanic), which had struck a German mine and sunk in 1916 while serving as a hospital ship. This was the largest ship lost in the war, but although she sank in just 55 minutes, all but 30 souls on board were saved. Her sister Imperator went to Cunard as a replacement for the Lusitania, the ill-fated liner whose sinking had outraged America and helped drag that nation into the war against Germany.

Hospital ship HMHS Britannic during World War I

White Star sent representatives and shipyard engineers from Harland & Wolff in Belfast to Hamburg to supervise completion of their new possession. The whole ship needed re-wiring, and a mysterious fire that damaged her during completion and which the British put down to sabotage by the German workers was probably an electrical fault: this would be a recurrent theme. She completed in March 1922 and White Star officers were sent to supervise her trials by officers and men of Hamburg-Amerika line. This was marred by briefly running aground, but after a week she was accepted and handed over. Her German name was painted out and replaced with Majestic.

Majestic at New York shortly after her acquisition by White Star Line

A White Star crew arrived and sailed her to Southampton, during which time they repainted her funnels into company colours. She arrived exactly 10 years to the day that the Titanic had departed on her ill-fated maiden voyage. Not only the largest in the world, she was arguably the most opulent, designed by the French architect Charles Mewès. Her German builders had trunked the boiler uptakes around the ships sides (rather than through the centre), to allow for huge, uninterrupted interior spaces, and spared no expense on the specification

First class entrance foyer on the Majestic

Despite being a foreigner in a time when ocean liners were a symbol of national prestige, she was made White Star flagship and was the pride of the fleet. Her first official duties were to be inspected by King George V and Queen Mary, before heading for New York. She settled down to a glamorous 1920s career on the Atlantic, but one that was always marred by the occasional spontaneous fire in her electrical system, and growing cracks in her decks (which grew to 100ft long) as a result of the lengthening job.

White Star service poster for Majestic; “The World’s Largest Ship”

The Depression hit the Transatlantic liners hard, already struggling from a downturn in migrating passengers, and in White Star’s case, poor corporate management. The Majestic frequently found herself on “booze cruises” from a very dry and thirsty Prohibition-era USA to help pay her huge running costs. But the cracks grew bigger, the electrical fires got more frequent and the finances grew ever worse. Cunard and White Star line merged in 1934 in a government-sponsored deal. The new company had too many liners and the older ones began to be disposed of; Majestic survived the initial chop, but her card was marked.

With the new company flagship Queen Mary under construction, Cunard-White Star made to dispose of the sister ship Berengaria, which was older and more prone to fires, but the larger Majestic had higher running costs so in 1936 was taken out of service instead.

RMS Queen Mary under construction at John Brown’s yard at Clydebank, c. 1934

She quietly sailed her last voyage in February that year and disappeared from the schedules without any announcement on her future. In May she was bought by Thomas Ward of Inverkeithing for £115k (c. £6.6m in 2023), the scrapyard where many a liner and battleship ended its days.

Announcement of the last sailing of the Majestic, Birmingham Gazette, 14th February 1936

Majestic was taken into dock at Southampton to have her funnels and masts lowered to allow her to sneak beneath the Forth Bridge, but there was a snag – the minor matter of fine legal print of the Treaty of Versailles. Bismarck had been handed over as a prize of war as compensation to White Star, but the terms did not allow the new owner to sell her. Instead, the Royal Navy stepped in and took possession, and “gave” Wards 24 old destroyers of equivalent scrap value in return. Everyone was happy. The lawyers were happy. Cunard-White Star got paid by Wards, Wards got the scrap they had paid for and the Royal Navy got what had been – until 6 months previous – the largest ship in the world, for the price of only a few old rusty relics.

Majestic in the King George V Dry Dock in Southampton having had her funnels and masts shortened

The great liner was now taken in for conversion to an enormous training ship, with capacity for 1500 trainee boys and 500 officer apprentices. Her luxurious fittings – apart from the swimming pool – were stripped out, and the vast interior converted to spartan classrooms. Where once her passengers slept in the most luxurious cabins afloat, the new occupants would sling hammocks from the roof beams in time-honoured Royal Navy tradition. In April 1937 she made her last sea voyage, to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth.

The Majestic passing under the Forth Bridge in April 1937 en route to commissioning as into the Royal Navy

On arrival, she commissioned as HMS Caledonia, named after the Victorian training ship that had once served on the Forth under that name. Her job was to train the boys and young men who would fill the ranks of the expanding Royal Navy in the run up to the inevitable war. By the end of the year there were 1,000 trainees aboard.

The training ship HMS Caledonia on the Forth in 1898, an old battleship built in 1810 as HMS Impregnable.

The new Caledonia only had an expected lifespan of 4 years, she was to plug the gaps until permanent shore facilities could take over; but she didn’t even make this. On the outbreak of war there was a panic that the Luftwaffe would target her for a revenge sinking. This was not without reason and the first air raids over the United Kingdom during the war soon followed over the Forth with the Royal Navy and Rosyth being the target. And so the trainee boys onboard were packed off to safety in the Isle of Man, the officer apprentices were sent ashore at Rosyth, and the great ship was floated out into the Forth and pumped full of water so she would settle on the sea bed at low tide (therefore couldn’t be “sunk”), to await her fate, or another use.

However the proud old ship had other ideas. Just 26 days after war was declared and a full 17 days before the Luftwaffe arrived over the Forth, she set herself on fire and burnt out, settling on to the bed of the Firth. Her shonky electrical system had the last laugh. With the country now at war with Germany, the niceties of previous treaties could be overlooked, and she was sold to Wards of Inverkeithing – again, for mining as a strategic reserve of scrap iron. She was demolished in situ from 1940-43.

The wreck of the Caledonia being scrapped, 3rd May 1943. Imperial War Museum Collection, A 9776

In July 1943, what remained of the hull was patched up and floated around the corner to Inverkeithing, for beaching and final break-up by Wards. This was completed in 1944, her name transferred to a shore station at Oban.

The remains of Majestic being scrapped at Inverkeithing in 1943-44. IWM A 25218

After the war, the name was relocated back to Rosyth, where it was a shore training establishment until 1985. It was rehabilitated again at Rosyth in 1996, where it remains to this day, the Navy’s HQ in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The HMS Caledonia which was once the liner RMS Majestic remains the longest ship to have ever commissioned into the Royal Navy, a full 24ft longer than the modern Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers. With her loss in 1939, the battleship HMS Hood would regain her crown as the largest ship in the Navy. In a sardonic twist of fate, Hood would be sunk in May 1941 by a German ship named Bismarck – with great loss of life.

German naval photo of the sinking of HMS Hood. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1998-035-05 / Lagemann / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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The Great Storm of 1901: the thread about the tragic loss of the cutter “Active”

On the 12th November 1901 a terrible storm formed over the North Sea and battered the East Coast of Scotland. The Firth of Forth felt its full fury and by the following morning twenty men would lie dead in the cold waters of Wardie Bay, when the Royal Navy cutter Active was driven ashore and wrecked against the Granton Breakwater.

Headline from the Edinburgh Evening News, 13th November 1901.

The Active was a 135 ton sailing yawl, built in Kent in 1867. For 20 years she had been stationed in the Forth as tender to the navy’s guardship at South Queensferry, the old battleship HMS Anson. She had recently returned south from secondment to the Revenue Service as a fisheries cutter off of the Shetland Islands. Her captain was Lt. Charles Culley RN, a pious and temperate man who was a “good husband, a good father and a real Christian” in the words of his widow. Culley had started out life as a pit boy in Somerset but had turned to Methodism and joined the Navy. He was therefore somewhat unusual in being a Bluejacket, having come up through the ranks and had recently learned that he was being advanced in the service and would be receiving command of a steam gunboat.

HM Revenue Cutter Active, London Illustrated News – Saturday 23rd November 1901

During the day on November 12th the temperature plunged and the wind got increasingly strong. Soon it brought heavy squalls of rain and sleet. The waves ran high along the Forth and were “breaking with great violence against the piers and embankments, doing considerable damage“. At the end of the eastern breakwater at Granton the green marker lighthouse and a gangway were carried away. On the quayside, part of the roof of the North British Railway station was blown off. At Trinity Crescent the sea wall was breached and the road was left impassable. On account of the intensity of the storm in the North Sea the east coast fishing fleet returned home early, boats from as far as Dundee and Aberdeen running for the safety of Granton. The Burntisland ferry was stopped, with the William Muir being kept tied up alongside at Granton. At North Queensferry the Norwegian steamer Dronning Gyda of Kristiansund was driven ashore and the Swedish schooner Tura was wrecked on the island of Inchgarvie, her crew of 7 managing to scramble ashore and seek shelter. Many vessels came into Leith Roads to seek shelter; those that could sought refuge in the harbours; those left out in the Forth were seen to be straining at their anchors. Similar stories were repeated all along the east coast of Scotland and England.

“Approaching Storm, Entrance to the Firth of Forth”; Jock Wilson, mid-19th century; Wolverhampton Arts and Heritage via ArtUK

The gale swept across the city early in the afternoon and many a chimney pot came crashing down. A cartload of hay was blown over and several shop windows were blown in. Trees were brought down in the Botanics, at St. Bernard’s Crescent and on Moray Place. At the Usher’s bonded warehouse at St. Leonards the lamplighter, Donald Cormack, lost his life when an external wooden staircase he was climbing collapsed in the wind. At 74 Causewayside, twelve year old Annie Hanlan was killed as she lay in bed when the chimney breast of the tenement collapsed through the roof. A heroic effort on the part of the Sciennes firemen under the command of Lt. Grinton saw her 14 year old sister Mary, who had been sharing the same bed, rescued and taken to the Infirmary suffering from serious injuries. Two others were injured and the tenement was condemned, rendering 12 families homeless.

The maximum average wind speed during the storm would be recorded at 67mph. Beyond the city boundaries nearly all telegraph and telephone cables came down. There was no communication north, only three wires to Glasgow left intact and a single each to Newcastle and Leeds for all southwards communications. A huge backlog of messages piled up in the telegraph offices, unsent. Within the city, the telephone network was “very much out of order“, hampering the emergency response. Out in the Forth, Lt. Culley and the Active had been sent from their mooring at South Queenferry to seek shelter in Leith Roads in the time honoured way, in the lee of the island of Inchkeith. Culley had three anchors put down to secure his charge and during the day it was seen by observers on the shore to be riding out the storm as comfortably as could be expected.

“Inchkeith on the Forth in a Fresh Gale”. Ships have long sought refuge in Leith Roads, sheltering in the lee of the island of Inchkeith from gales coming in off the North Sea. John Gabriel Stedman, 1781. CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

Around 3 O’clock in the morning the Active was seen to be dragging her anchors. Her tiller was smashed, and orders were given to bring the spare up from below decks. Her foresail was raised to try and sail out of trouble, but it jammed and had to be hauled back down. Attempts by a Granton-based tug to reach her were futile and what few onlookers were present watched helplessly as she was soon being driven uncontrollably towards the shore. Culley let off his distress rockets to try and summon assistance and mustered the remaining men from their sleep on deck. However, before any attempt to save lives could be made, the little ship was dashed against the breakwater and “smashed to match-wood“. Observers saw her two blue marker lights disappear from view at about 4:15AM. In the last moments before disaster, Culley had ordered his men to climb the rigging in the hope of safety but of the twenty-five souls on board, only three were spared. Such had been the haste of her demise that only three men had managed to put on their cork life jackets and Ordinary Seamen W. Travis, G. Dady (or Peady) and G. Pearce would be the only men who made it off. Two of them were washed completely over the breakwater and into the harbour, being picked up by the steamer Bele who had heard their cries.

The saving of Ordinary Seaman Travis by the crew of the Bele. Artist’s reconstruction in The Graphic illustrated newspaper, November 28th 1901

The third, dressed only in his string vest and life jacket, managed to cling to the breakwater and “through dogged persistence” crawled along it to safety. The other two survivors of the ship’s complement were Quartermaster Walsenham (or Wakenham) and the Second Mate, Boatswain John Donovan, both of whom had been allowed shore leave in Leith the day before and had been unable to rejoin ship on account of the weather.

Headline from the Dundee Evening Telegraph, 13th November 1901. Note that at this time it was thought that 23 lives, not 20, had been lost.

With the telephone and telegraph systems being out of order, news had to be carried on foot to the police office at Gayfield Square from where 10 constables and two doctors were dispatched under the command of Superintendent Lamb , Inspector Cruickshanks and Sergeant Ford. By 11AM, only three bodies had been recovered, the vessel having been driven ashore on an ebb tide, which meant that most of the victims’ bodies were carried away from the shore and out into the Forth. The local fishermen, intimately in tune with the currents and habits of the Firth, pronounced that bodies would be carried to the vicinity of Elie.

All morning on the 13th, dense crowds lined the Wardie foreshore to gaze on at the macabre spectacle of wreckage and flotsam being tossed around in the bay and of policemen combing the shore with boathooks looking for survivors (or, more realistically, bodies). Rifles, cutlasses and uniforms were brought up on the slipway at Granton and large quantities of Rum had to be secured by the Customs men before they found their way into jacket pockets. Sergeant Bain of the Police was able to pull ashore the ship’s colours from the breakwater at considerable risk to his life.

Granton Harbour from Wardie in 1900, the year before the loss of the Active. She was driven against the eastern breakwater, on the right of the picture. © Edinburgh City Libraries

On Thursday 14th, the newspapers reported that the foreshore along the coast was being searched for bodies and that divers had arrived to scour the seabed around the wreckage. The gunboats HMS Redwing and Cockchafer arrived to trawl up and down the Forth. In the aftermath, observers with the benefit of hindsight said that the Active had been anchored too close to the shore and not far enough north to be safely sheltered in the lee of Inchkeith. Some were of the opinion that she should have been brought into the safety of the harbour, however it was noted in the papers that this would have been against Culley’s instructions. Others still wrote to the Scotsman bemoaning the lack of a coastguard watch or lifeboat at Granton, Leith or Newhaven.

The first funerals took place on Saturday 16th, with a cortège leaving the City Mortuary on Infirmary Street with full naval honours on its way to the Admiralty’s plot at Seafield cemetery. The procession was led by the officers and men of HMS Anson and the band of the shore base HMS Caledonia. Thousands turned out to line the streets and pay their respects to seamen John (or Herbert) Walker, R. Pearson and E. Farrow, Carpenter’s Mate H. Williams and Ship’s Boy J. Mulvaney. The same day, a requiem mass was held for James Donovan at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea R.C. Church in Leith. All six were interred side-by-side at Seafield, the men from the Anson firing a salute over the graves. That same day, a remarkable event occurred; a glass bottle was recovered on the shore at Granton, containing a message: “H.M.C. Active, Sinking Fast. From Captain Culley. Good-bye.” Mrs Culley identified the handwriting as that of her late husband.

On Tuesday 26th of November, a further body was recovered from the mud in Granton harbour, Ordinary Seaman James Lyall could only be identified from his names stitched inside his clothing. On the 29th, tugs brought the remains of the Active to a position in Wardie Bay where they could be hauled ashore and broken up. The following day, a benevolent fund was opened for the families of the deceased by Captain William Fisher CB of the Anson and his officers, with the Lifeboat Institution making an opening contribution of £2,000. Lieutenant Culley alone left behind 6 children, the eldest being 17.

Name NameLieutenant Charley Culley, TrinityChief Quartermaster James Donovan, KingstonPetty Officer 2nd Class Reuben Weller, KentCarpenter’s Mate Harry Williams, PembrokeAble Seaman Richard Pearson, LondonAble Seaman Edward Farrow, LondonAble Seaman George Gregory, LondonAble Seaman Richard Randall, LondonAble Seaman William Thompson, HartlepoolAble Seaman Edward Plumber, LondonAble Seaman William Burton, LondonOrdinary Seaman James LyallOrdinary Seaman Thomas AmosOrdinary Seaman James TempleOrdinary Seaman John (or Herbert) WalkerOrdinary Seaman Arthur PreynnOrdinary Seaman Arthur BanhamOrdinary Seaman William MillingOrdinary Seaman John ButtonsShip’s Boy Joseph MulvaneyOfficers and men lost on the Active

Bodies were slowly recovered in November and by the 20th, seventeen had been recovered. On 27th November, Ordinary Seaman James Lyall was buried at Seafield. A court martial into the disaster was held in distant Chatham on 3rd December. Four of the five survivors (George Pearce was still in hospital recovering) appeared, but were not charged or asked to plead. Captain Fisher of the Anson gave witness, confirming that he had ordered Culley not to risk his ship on any account, and to anchor her in Leith Roads. He did however say that Culley had not done so in the exact position he had been shown on the chart. The survivors stated that the loss of the tiller and jamming of the sails had prevented them for seeking safety, and that the Granton tugs had not approached close enough to offer assistance. The court exonerated the survivors from all blame, but noted – with the benefit of hindsight – that Culley should have “shown better judgement had he either weighed or slipped anchors and run for safety” but that when the disaster was inevitable “he appeared to have maintained discipline and done all possible to save life.” Culley’s body was not recovered until late in January 1902, and he was buried with full naval honours near his men in Seafield Cemetery.

Lt. Charles Culley’s gravestone at Seafield Cemetery. Photo © Self

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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The thread about the Calton Hill Naval Telegraph and the Forth coast’s Napoleonic communication system

Edinburgh’s City Art Centre shared this wonderful 1797 painting by George Walker this morning (July 11th 2023), showing the east of the old city as viewed from the vicinity of St. Anthony’s Chapel in Holyrood Park. This was an extremely popular viewpoint for 18th and 19th century artists and there are any numbers of etchings, watercolours and prints of this vista, making it a good record of the changes in the city over this time period.

“Edinburgh from the South East”, George Walker, 1797. City of Edinburgh Council Museums & Galleries

This image of course poses the question: “what on earth is that enormous mast on the Calton Hill?!“

Well then, what on earth is that enormous mast on the Calton Hill? The answer is that this was a telegraph. No, not an electric or wireless telegraph, but a naval flagstaff for communication with ships in Leith Roads during the period of the French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The word telegraph of course long predates more modern uses and literally means “writing from a distance” and that’s exactly what a systems such as this could do; as and when daylight and the ambient visibility allowed, the mast could communicate by coded messages transmitted by hoisting various combinations of flags and marker balls up the staff.

The telegraph pole is clearly marked on John Ainslie’s 1804 map of the City:

Ainslie’s 1804 Town Plan, centred on Calton Hill. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

And we can also very clearly see it in an advertising print for one of Robert Barker’s panoramas from 1806 that was exhibited in Leicester Square in London. His first panorama of this view, from 1792, does not show the mast in place.

The Calton Hill Signal Mast, on “A View of Edinburgh. An advertisement for Robert Barker’s Panorama exhibited at Leicester Square” by Henry Aston Barker, 1806. National Galleries Scotland

An earlier print – also in the collection of the city – shows a similar scene to that of George Walker’s painting, however as the Bridewell – Robert Adam’s prison on the lower slopes of the Calton Hill – is missing from this scene it suggests that this is prior to 1795 and therefore that the mast pre-dates the installation of the Admiralty’s signal telegraph chain. The mast is absent in a plan of the city by James Watson and Thomas Brown dated 1793, suggesting it was erected between those dates. A chain of very similar telegraphs had been installed around the Channel Islands in 1792.

A view of the Calton Hill from the South East. Unknown artist, c. 1795 Edinburgh City Libraries

This Calton Hill signal post was at the western end of a telegraph chain that stretched between Edinburgh and St. Abbs Head, to forewarn of any French incursions into the Firth of Forth (bear in mind that in 1779, a small American squadron under John Paul Jones had tried just that) and allow the reporting of shipping traffic in and out of the Forth back to the Admiralty in Leith (formally the Commander-in-Chief at Leith and on the Coast of Scotland) . Interception and boarding parties could then be sent out to any unexpected or unknown vessels. This signal chain was apparently constructed in 1801, so would have been an addition to the pre-existing Calton Hill flagstaff. It is likely that the mast was first erected for communicating with ships anchored in the Leith Roads out in the Forth, at this time an important forming-up point for naval convoys.

With thanks to Chris Wright for his assistance in finding a copy of the relevant paper, I have plotted the Forth & East Coast flag telegraph chain onto a map (below). The 8 stations spanned 41 miles of coast from St. Abb’s Head in the east to Calton Hill in the west, for the Admiralty HQ in Leith. Messages that would otherwise take the best part of a day to carry could be transmitted (weather dependent) to and from Edinburgh and Leith in a matter of minutes.

Forth & East Coast telepgraph chain, plotted onto a modern aerial map, after Frank Kitchen, 1990.

Each station was manned by a lieutenant on half pay, a petty officer or midshipman plus as his deputy and two men. All to have been classed as “unfit for sea service”, meaning they were too old, young, or injured. The structures were hastily constructed and temporary, built largely from timber with canvas for roofing and little remains apart from perimeter walls to keep the sheep out or some levelled platforms for the signal staff and support guys. The wooden huts were painted with a mix of tar, ochre and sand. Life must have been dull, cold and uncomfortable.

For communication purposes, each telegraph was provided with 1 x large red signal flag (18 breadths x 7 yards size), 1 x large blue pennant (5 breaths x 50 yards size) and 4 x hollow canvas signalling balls, painted black (43″ diameter). A system of coded signals used combinations of the red flag, blue pennant and a certain number of balls. For instance the blue pennant plus 3 balls = “Enemy landing to the west“. The below diagram for the Port of Leith flag signals in the 1860s, shows how with just 3 flags and 2 balls, it was possible to unambiguously communicate the numbers 10 – 26 (and the halves in-between). Now make those depth numbers signals in a code book, and you’ve got yourself a telegraphic communication system.

Leith Harbour tidal depth flag signals. Scan from a booklet in the possession of Threadinburgh. © Self

Each station was provided with an inventory that included:

• 163 yards of roofing canvas
• A 30 foot flagstaff
• A 50 foot topmast for the staff
• 100 fathoms of 1.5 inch and 77 fathoms of 2.5 inch rope
• officer’s bath stove
• fire grate for the men’s quarters
• 6 chairs, 2 tables

Four chaldrons of coal (about 5.25 m3), £3 of candles and £1 of stationary were allowed per annum. It wasn’t until 1803 that the Admiralty made an allowance for 1 x cot bed (for the officer) and 3 x hammocks (for the men), and only upon written application. I have also inferred that the officer may not have lived permanently on site as he was given a travel allowance. The illustrations below, made by Royal Engineer Captain William Smith, show the telegraph station at Malin Head in Ireland in 1804. The flagstaffs and cabins would have been similar on the East Coast of Scotland.

Malin Head signal station, CC-by-SA 1.0 Trinity College DublinMalin Head signal station, CC-by-SA 1.0 Trinity College Dublin

Exceptions exist however. The stations at St. Abbs, Dowlaw and North Berwick seem to have been more substantially built from the local stone, perhaps due to their isolation or exposure? Good remains of the stone buildings remain on North Berwick Law above the town.

The remains of the North Berwick Law telegraph station hut. Canmore photograph.

In case there was any doubt it was a military structure, rather than a shepherd’s bothy, one of the stones has been neatly inscribed with the cipher “G. R.”

G. R. inscription on North Berwick law remains. Canmore photograph

And a section of flag staff (quite remarkably, if it’s original) remained in situ during the archaeological site survey in 2018!

Apparent flagstaff remains on North Berwick Law. Canmore photograph

I can find almost no mentions of the East Coast telegraph being used in the newspapers. The earliest is in the London Oracle on 26th October 1798, which records a scare that French warships were in the Forth when two friendly Russian warships did not give the correct signals and in consequence “the signal post on the Calton Hill was at work most part of the day“. A decade later in 1808 the Caledonian Mercury reported that the St. Abb’s Head station sent a message to Edinburgh that the damaged merchant ship Cygnet had drifted inshore there. An 1802 aquatint shows that the mast was still in place at that time:

Edinburgh from the East, 1802 aquatint from “A Journey from Edinburgh through Parts of North Britain.” by Alexander Campbell

Plans of the city include it up to 1809, but construction of the Nelson Monument from 1807 onwards soon made the flagstaff surplus to requirements – however the below illustration below by John Harden clearly shows the Monument in place where the flagstaff once stood but also shows the flagstaff standing to the east of it. This suggests that the staff was moved to an alternative location while the monument was still under construction.

Edinburgh from St Anthony’s Chapel, John Harden, early 19th century as the Nelson Monument is in place. Credit, National Galleries of Scotland

The Monument was designed to effectively be a 160 foot tall flagstaff in its own right, to act as a signal station, with accommodation for the signallers, the officer in the tower itself and four injured seamen pensioners in the building at its base. It was intended that the duties of the occupants would include hoisting news of British naval victories and celebrating past triumphs on their anniversaries. For the latter purposes, flags bearing the names of these events were to have been provided.

R. Scott engraving, 1809, “The monument to the memory of Lord Nelson erected on the Calton Hill Edinburgh”. Edinburgh City Libraries

The design of the monument by Robert Burn is said to be inspired by Nelson’s folding telescope. You have to admit that it was a big improvement on the obelisk style from an earlier draft by Alexander Nasmyth that had been rejected as too expensive.

Alexander Nasmyth, 1805. “To his Royal Highness George Prince of Wales this engraving of the monument intended to be erected on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh”. Edinburgh City Libraries

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A day of firsts; the thread about the start of the air war over Britain above the Firth of Forth

This thread was originally written and published in July 2023.

On September 3rd 1939, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, drawing the country into what would become the Second World War. This early period of the war is sometimes called the “Phoney War”, on account of the relatively limited military activity between France, Germany and Britain on the Western Front. However on Monday 16th October 1939, the air war over Britain commenced over the Firth of Forth as German bombers made their first air raid on the country of the war and the RAF squadrons defending Edinburgh went immediately to war.

Pilots of 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron in England during the Battle of Britain in 1940, posing for a propaganda photo with a new Spitfire aircraft paid for by public subscriptions in Persia. © IWM HU 88793

603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron – an auxiliary squadron defending its home city from RAF Turnhouse – claimed the first German aircraft to be shot down by an RAF fighter over British territory in WW2 on that very day. At about 14:45, Red Section under Flt. Lt. “Patsy” Gifford fatally damaged a Ju-88 bomber near Cockenzie. The German aircraft, from squadron KG30, crashed into the Forth 4 miles offshore. The Cockenzie fishing boat Dayspring, skippered by John Dickson, rescued the crew. They admitted that they were reluctant at first to do so, but they were sailors foremost and overcame their misgivings to help those in peril on the sea.

Flt. Lt. Pat “Patsy” Gifford on landing at Turnhouse after shooting down the Ju-88. His Spitfire was called “Stickleback”. He was back up in the air within minutes after refuelling and reloading.

Rear gunner OGefr. Kramer had been killed before the plane crashed and was never found, but pilot OLt. Hans Storp and crewmen Hugo Rohnke and Hans Georg Heilscher were saved and sent to the military hospital at Edinburgh Castle, the first German military prisoners in Britain of WW2. The grateful Storp gave his gold ring to John Dickson in thanks for his life.

Left to Right, Storp, Rohnke, Helischer in Edinburgh Castle.

Earlier that morning, at 09:30, the “Chain Home” radar station at Drone Hill in Berwick shire had identified two enemy aircraft approaching over the North Sea. At 10:21, Flt. Lt. George Pinkerton of 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron became the first RAF fighter pilot to attack a German aircraft over Britain when his Spitfire engaged and damaged a He-111 bomber over the Isle of May. This aircraft – one of two from squadron KG26 – had been on a reconnaissance flight to photograph the naval dockyard at Rosyth and was chased east out to sea where it evaded its pursuers, returning safely home. 602 Squadron had been redeployed eastwards to defend Edinburgh and the Forth and had been based out of RAF Drem in East Lothian for just 3 days.

George Pinkerton, later Group Captain, OBE, DFC.

A confused game of cat and mouse now commenced between the RAF and Luftwaffe all along the East Coast of Scotland for much of the morning and early afternoon as attempts were made to intercept sporadic German incursions. The radar sets failed to work properly and broke down, phantom raiders were reported by the public and the ground controllers got their calculations back to front and sent the defending fighters in the wrong directions.

602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron mechanics prepare a Spitfire for flight at RAF Drem under the watchful eye of the pilot. Notice the non-regulation mess room chair being used as a stepladder. © IWM HU 106303

That afternoon the weather was good – clear skies with only broken cloud. At 14:20, the Royal Observer Corps, trained ground spotters whose job was to identify and report enemy aircraft over land, confirmed the presence of Ju-88 bombers in East Lothian. These were 12 aircraft commanded by Haupt. Helmuth Pohle of squadron KG30 and had been sent on a mission to attack the Royal Navy at Rosyth, based on the reports from the morning reconnaissance flight that George Pinkerton and 602 Squadron had intercepted. Once again, those Spitfires were scrambled to meet the raiders. At 14:27, the anti aircraft battery at Dalmeny reported the bombers flying up the Forth. The attackers had been forbidden to attack the Dockyard itself for fear of civilian casualties, so aimed for the ships anchored in the Firth. While the gunners frantically phoned for permission to open fire, the bombs began to fall.

The German bombs begin to fall over the Forth Bridge from The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1939

The first wave of attackers targeted the cruiser HMS Southampton. At 14:35, the 500kg bombs fell around the ship but missed; however two of her boats that had been anchored alongside, including the Admiral’s personal barge, were sunk. At 14:38 – three minutes after the start of the attack – the orders for the defenders to open fire were given and every anti-aircraft gun on land and on ships that could be brought to bare opened up. At the same time, the next wave of attackers, those led by OLt. Hans Storp, arrived. They approached from the south over Threipmuir Reservoir and commenced their bombing run.

Atmospheric but sensationalised reporting of the attack on HMS Southampton (with HMS Edinburgh behind her) from The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1939

By now, both 602 (City of Glasgow) and 603 (City of Edinburgh) squadrons were in the air. Yellow Section of 603 attacked Storp and put his port engine out of action. The plane limped towards East Lothian out to sea, in a futile attempt to escape, which was where Red Section under Patsy Gifford brought it down. The victorious 603 were now ordered to return to Turnhouse to re-arm and re-fuel, leaving the defence in the hands of 602 Squadron. Blue Section, under George Pinkerton, spotted the aircraft of Helmuth Pohle over Inverkeithing and gave chase through the broken cloud. Pinkerton and his wing-man Archie McKellar attacked, killing two of the German machine’s crew and incapacitating both its engines. It headed for the sea near Crail and ditched three miles off of Fife Ness. The time was somewhere between 14:45 and 14:55, the Observer Corps putting the crash at the latter time, but McKellar and Pinkerton are credited with gaining the “first kill” before Patsy Gifford in some chronologies.

Archie McKellar, from Cuthbert Orde – Pilots of Fighter Command, book, 1942

The events of October 16th had not yet concluded however. About 25 minutes after Pohle’s machine crashed, another Ju-88 bomber appeared over the outer reaches of the Forth. It had escaped interception up to this point as the ground observers had initially thought it to be a friendly Bristol Blenheim (an easy mistake, as the two were somewhat similar and the Ju-88 was a brand new aircraft and almost totally unseen by British eyes this early in the war). It found the destroyer HMS Mohawk off of the fishing village of Elie & Earlsferry and attacked; dropping its bombs and firing its machine guns at the ship.

HMS Mohawk under attack, from The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1939

By the time it was chased off by one of 602 Squadron’s Spitfires, 13 men including First Lieutenant E. J. Shea had been killed. Her captain, Commander Richard Jolly, was fatally wounded but refused to abandon his post and brought his ship safely back to Rosyth before dying a few hours later. In total 16 men from the Mohawk would lose their lives that day.

“Commander R. F. Jolly in uniform”, by Hubert Andrew Freeth. © IWM ART LD 157

The last of the raiders that day appeared in ones and twos across the Lothians around 16:00 and were chased across the Forth, RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello by the Spitfires of 603 Squadron, but to no avail. Minor injuries were caused across the city from broken glass as bullets fired in the sky came down to earth and painter Joe McLuskie, working on a house in Abercorn Terrace, Portobello, was hit in the stomach and had to undergo emergency surgery in Leith Hospital. The raid had also claimed its first animal victim of the air war over Britain when Lady, a spaniel belonging to Mrs Mercer of Alma Street in Inverkeithing, was struck by shrapnel from falling “friendly” anti-aircraft shells and had to be put down as a result. The noise of the bombs and guns had panicked the animal and it had run off into the street.

Off of Crail, a fishing boat hauled four ditched German airmen from the sea. Crewmen Kurt Seydel and August Schleicher were already dead, Kurt Naake was mortally wounded and would not survive, leaving pilot Helmuth Pohle – nursing a broken jaw – as the sole survivor. He was sent to the naval hospital in Port Edgar. The bodies of Seydel and Schleicher lay in state at St. Phillip’s Church in Portobello, their coffins draped in Swastika flags, and were buried with military honours observed by a respectful turnout of locals at Portobello Cemetery. The proceedings were led by Henry Steel, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and many men from both 602 and 603 Squadrons were in attendance with the pipe band of 603 providing a musical lament. The pair were re-interred in a German military cemetery in England after the war.

The funeral cortège of Seydel and Schleicher proceeds along Brunstane Road

Both Patsy Gifford and George Pinkerton would receive the Distinguished Flying Cross award for their efforts that day. Gifford, a reservist who was in peacetime a lawyer and town councillor from Castle Douglas, was sent to command 3 Squadron RAF in November 1939. He was shot down and killed over Belgium in May 1940.

Commemorative plaque dedicated to Pat Douglas in 2010. Photo by Paul Goodwin, from IWM collection 69507

Gifford and Pinkerton both have claims to their “first”. However neither claimed either the first British or first RAF aerial victories of the war. On September 26th 1939, Lt. Cdr. Bruce S. McEwen of 803 Squadron Fleet Air Arm and flying from HMS Ark Royal (therefore a Royal Navy aviator and not in the RAF) shot down a German Do-18 flying boat over the North Sea off Norway, the first British aerial victory of the way. The below photo was taken by the destroyer HMS Somali when they rescued its crew.

German Do-18 aircraft as the crew scramble into the liferaft before being rescued by HMS Somali.

Another Do-18 would become the first German aircraft brought down by an RAF aircraft flying from the British mainland, was claimed by a Lockheed Hudson patrol aircraft of 224 Squadron Coastal Command out of RAF Leuchars on 8th October. The Hudson, actually a modified American airliner and intended to be a bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, proved to have a surprising capability as a long range fighter in the early part of the war.

A damaged Lockheed Hudson of 224 Squadron on its return to Wick from a sortie over Norway. © IWM CH 46

And two weeks after 602 Squadron’s Pinkerton and McKellar brought Helmuth Pohle’s war to a premature end off of Crail, Archie McKellar shot down an He-111 bomber of squadron KG26, flown by Uffz. Kurt Lehmkuhl over East Lothian. This was the first RAF victory that brought down a plane over land, the machine making a crash landing in the Lammermuir hills near Humbie.

Heinkel He-111 of KG26, flown by Lehmkuhl, after it crashed near HumbieHeinkel He-111 of KG26, flown by Lehmkuhl, after it crashed near Humbie

Another He-111 was shot down by 602 Squadron out of RAF Drem on February 9th 1940, with Squadron Leader Douglas Farquar bringing it down in a field just outside North Berwick.

He-111 “1H + EN” crashed in a field outside North Berwick

This was the first chance for British intelligence to get a close up look of such a machine in a flyable condition and it was therefore partially dismantled and towed away for onwards transport to the Boffins down south. The plane was put back together, repaired, and commissioned into the RAF as part of the “Rafwaffe” of captured machines. Here it is seen going down Dirleton Avenue in North Berwick to the bemusement of onlookers.

The North Berwick Heinkel being towed down Dirleton Avenue

Remarkably, there’s a colour cine film of it going down Musselburgh High Street, exciting much local interest, on its way to RAF Turnhouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwhXwLhWDEc

Hans Storp’s Ju-88 would suffer the misfortune of being the first pilot and aircraft to be shot down twice in the war, when in December 1939 a re-enactment of his last flight took place for the propaganda film “Squadron 992“. An RAF Bristol Blenheim (which the observers had confused with the German Ju-88 back in October) stood in for the German machine on this occasion. The Cockenzie fisherman John Dickson, his crew, and their boat the Dayspring reprised their roles from that day and played themselves for the cameras.

The crew of the Dayspring “rescuing” the German airmen. Still from Squadron 992

You can watch the film Squadron 992 on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XycuXAtLyo4

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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The many lives of the “Rovenska”: the thread about a Leith-built steam yacht

This thread was originally written and published in June 2023.

Today’s Auction House Artefact is this brass trivet stippled with “HMS Rovenska 1917“. So why was there a Royal Navy ship named for an obscure Croatian fishing village and why does this have anything to do with my usual subject matter? Read on.

Brass trivet for sale, “HMS Rovenska 1917”

The clue is in the photo in the bottom right corner of the auction listing – before she was His Majesty’s Ship, the Rovenska started out life as a steam yacht of that name and was launched in Leith by Ramage & Ferguson on March 2nd 1904, yard no. 192. This is a thread about the many lives of this vessel.

The Rovenska at Cowes in 1911 dressed for a naval review. Source: Heritage Images

The luxurious, 198 feet long ship was designed by Cox & King in London. It was a Miss Pratt, most likely the daughter of Cox & King director Gustavus Pratt, who had named Rovenska at the launch in Leith. She displaced 650 tons, and was powered by a triple-expansion steam engine that made around 1,000 horsepower. The newspapers at the time reported she was “luxuriously fitted throughout“:

The yacht has exceptionally good accommodation, which includes handsomely-fitted dining room, drawing room and smoking room in the deck house range on main deck, and has a promenade deck above, extending full width of vessel on each side and for about two-thirds of the length. The interior accommodation is fitted in choice selected hard woods with tasteful decorations and furnishings throughout.

Description of the Rovenska at launch, from The Scotsman, 3rd March 1904

Why was she named Rovenska? This is because she was the private steam yacht of Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria – an Admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Navy – and his wife Archduchess Maria Theresa, it being Maria Theresa who actually ordered her. The royal couple had their summer palace on the Adriatic island of Lošinj in what is now Croatia, Rovenska being the name of the harbour here. In case you didn’t already know, Ramage & Ferguson in Leith had built up a solid worldwide reputation in the late 19th century for building luxury steam yachts and counted many members of royalty, aristocracy and assorted multi-millionaires on their client books. Cox & King were one of the three principal naval architects who designed ships for them.

Rovenska – the harbour of Mali Lošinj, Croatia, by K. Korlevic

The Rovenska sailed from this island for a few years before becoming surplus to requirements when her owners ordered a newer and larger vessel from Ramage & Ferguson, the Ul.

Archduke Charles Stephen (left), Archduchess Maria Theresa (centre) and family onboard the Ul

At this point the German-born British businessman and philanthropist Max Waechter purchased her for himself, keeping the name. In 1914 she was sold on to Gustavus Pratt, one of Cox & King’s directors and also a yacht broker.

On the outbreak of World War I, Pratt found a new customer for the Rovenska and she was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1915, still carrying the same name, which was perhaps slightly awkward considering its relationship to the monarchy of a declared national enemy! The Navy gave her flag number 071 and she served as an auxiliary minesweeper in the English Channel and North Sea, for which purposes she was armed with two 12-pounder guns. The Rovenska served in this role until March 1919 (with the end of the war, there were still lots of mines left to be cleared).

After this service ended she was put up for auction and found a new owner – one Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi – the so-called Father of Wireless. Marconi wanted a luxurious yacht for his own pleasure use, to entertain high-profile guests and clients but also to serve as a floating laboratory, where he could conduct wireless experiments far from land and from prying eyes. He renamed her Elettra (Electra in English).

The yacht Elettra, notice the extra height of masts and many more wires

Elettra was fitted with a generator and wired throughout for electric light as built. Marconi retained much of the original interior and accommodation, but had the masts heightened to carry a large spread of wireless aerials and a laboratory installed, chock-full of his latest gear and with a connecting door to his personal cabin. Until his death in 1937 the Elettra spent a glittering scientific and society career cruising the seven seas.

Painting of the Elettra by Wm. Fellini, from an auction listing by Bonhams-Skinner Inc., 2009

In 1920 she hosted the first ship-board dance where the music was broadcast in by radio, live from the Savoy Hotel in London. That same year, she received the voice of the soprano Dame Nellie Melba at a distance of some 2,000 miles from the Marconi transmitter in Chelmsford. In 1922 she hosted what must be the first “silent disco“, when guests aboard danced to music played to them by headphones and via a hand-held radio receiver.

“A personal dance” on board Elettra in 1922 off Albany, New York state. Dancers are Josephine Young of Riverside, Conn., and J.W. Elwood of New York

She conduct experiments in ship-to-shore, ship-to-ship and ship-to-aircraft voice communication; into short wave transmissions; into radio direction finding; observed radio signals bouncing off the moon. In 1930 Marconi made a 10,000 mile transmission from Elettra while anchored in the harbour of Genoa to a shore station in Sydney, Australia. A few days later he performed the technological feat of remotely turning on the lights in that latter harbour to mark the opening of the World Exhibition, from a switch aboard his yacht. Marconi and Elettra performed another feat in July 1934, when he covered up the windows of the wheelhouse and successfully navigated blind between two buoys off of Genoa using only a radio navigation signal broadcast from the shore for guidance.

Caricature of Marconi switching on the Sydney lights from 10,000 miles away by the flick of a switch, by Harry Clark, from the Sydney Mail, April 2nd 1930

When Marconi died in July 1937 the yacht was bought by the Italian Government (apparently on direct orders of Mussolini) who intended to turn her into a floating museum at Ostia. The outbreak of war with Britain in June 1940 caused this plan to stall and she was moved to the safer port of Trieste. Here she languished until 1943 when Italy signed an armistice with the Allies. At this point, she was requisitioned by Nazi Germany, now at war with the Kingdom of Italy, for use as a patrol boat. Her new owners did allow Professor Mario Picotti from the University of Trieste the concession of removing Marconi’s priceless radio equipment for safe keeping to the depths of the fortress of Castello di San Giusto.

The Castello di San Giusto, Trieste

The Germans renamed her NA-6 and armed her for use patrolling the Dalmatian coast. They fitted her with 15mm and 20mm machine canons for this purpose, as well as altering the masts and funnels. On January 22nd 1944, she was either attacked by Allied aircraft or torpedoed by a submarine (depending on which you believe), and run aground by her captain to stop her sinking. The damage observed on the remains of her hull suggests that it was an aerial attack as it is not consistent with torpedo attack (thank you to Andrew Bonifacio, curator at the Museo del Mare in Trieste for this information).

Painting by Antonio De Simone which appears to show the Elettra being hit by a torpedo. From an auction listing in 2022 by Cambi.

With the end of the war she became the state property of Yugoslavia, in whose waters she had sunk. In 1959, permission was granted by Marshall Tito himself for the Italians to survey the wreck with the possibility of salvaging it. This took place in 1962 and her remains were returned to Italy. All attempts at restoration failed however and after languishing for 15 years the decision was made to cut her up into smaller pieces for exhibit. Her elegant bow, complete with wartime damage, now graces the centre of a roundabout in a science park in Trieste.

Bow section of the Elettra – Science park area at Trieste

The engine and boiler rooms were sent to the Naval Museum in Venice, where they are now on display.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136891509@N07/51721080834/

After the war, the Marconi Wireless Company in the UK acquired a new research vessel – suitably named Elettra II – which was a converted WW2 torpedo boat. This vessel visited the harbour of Granton in May 1951 and gave day trips to employees of local shipping companies. In 1962, this stopgap vessel (which was found to be too weighed down by radio equipment to be very seaworthy) was replaced by the purpose-built Elettra III, launched in Berwick upon Tweed. This is now in private ownership in the USA. The fourth, and final Elettra was ordered in 1999 by the Italian Navy – a brand new, 3,180 tonne research and surveillance vessel. She entered service in 2003, almost exactly 99 years after the yacht that would become the first Elettra was launched in Leith.

Italian Navy research vessel “Elettra”, 2013, La Spezia, CC-by-SA 3.0, Jorge Guerra Moreno

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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The thread about Spuds and Hippos: Leith and Newhaven’s key part in building the Mulberry Harbours for Operation Overlord in World War 2

This thread was originally written and published in June 2023.

Today (June 6th) is the 79th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings, the largest seaborne invasion in history. The huge assault was supported by a vast logistical operation, at the core of which were to be two Mulberry Harbours. This is the story of Leith and Newhavens significant part in making this military megaproject a reality.

Aerial view of “Mulberry B” at Arromanches-les-Bains (Gold Beach) in Normandy (October 27, 1944). This is photograph C 4626 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

Mulberries A & B – one each for the US-led Omaha British-led Gold beaches respectively – were temporary, prefabricated harbours to rapidly offload supplies onto land after the initial assault, until other ports could be captured. Each enclosed an area larger than the harbour of Gibraltar. and was made up of a range of prefabricated, interlocking parts, each with a codename; Hippos, Crocodiles, Phoenixes, Bombardons, Beetles, Swiss Rolls, Whales and Spuds. And it was the first and – most importantly – last of these where Leith came in

Mulberry Harbour : Arromanches (B, Gold Beach), by war artist Stephen Bone © IWM Art.IWM ART LD 4607

A Spud was the end of the Whale, the latter being the overall codename for the pier ends. It was the largest and technically most complex component of the whole Mulberry – the part where the actual ships tied up to offload, and of the 23 Spuds required over half would be built in Leith. And they would not be built in just any old way, they were built in record-breaking time, in a brand new shipyard, constructed “almost overnight” specifically for the purpose of producing Mulberry components, by a temporary workforce who were largely ignorant of what they were doing.

Whale floating roadway leading to a Spud pier at Mulberry A off Omaha Beach

When it had become clear after the disastrous failure of the Dieppe Raid of 1942 that any cross-Channel invasion was going to require an unprecedented logistical exercise to support it, the best minds in the country – all the way up to Churchill himself – were focussed on how to move men and supplies quickly onto the land. Brigadier Bruce White, a leading civil engineer, was put in charge of the idea of creating floating assault harbours. Looking for inspiration, he recalled an unusual dredger he had seen in operation in the Bahamas almost 20 years before, and an idea formed in his head. That dredger, the Lucayan, had three special legs or “spuds”, which it could lower onto the sea bed to make it a stable platform while it went about its digging duties, at all states of the tide. It had been build on the Clyde in 1923 by Lobnitz & Co. in Renfrew, so White roped Henry Lobnitz in to his scheme.

The dredger “Lucayan”

White asked Lobnitz to design, based on the Lucayan, a pontoon with 4 spuds that could be lowered onto the sea bed to firmly anchor it and yet allow it to rise up and down on the tide. From this secure pier head, supplies could offload in deep water and find their way onto the land down a roadway of adjoining components. Lobnitz had the design completed by December 1942, but they were not a big yard and were busy with their own work, and had nowhere to build it. Enter stage left Alex. Findlay & Co., steel fabricators and bridge makers (such as the one at Russell Road in Edinburgh) of the Parkneuk Works in Motherwell. Findlay had been building landing craft at a temporary wartime shipyard at Old Kilpatrick and were the perfect company for the job. Findlays were up to the task of leading on construction of the Spuds, but they needed somewhere to build them. There was no capacity in any existing yard, so new facilities had to be found, and a new workforce. And that is where Leith comes in.

You see in 1942, Dutch engineers had completed the Western Breakwater at Leith Docks, adding 250 acres of dock space that formed the largest enclosed dock in Scotland and crucially, this had added 30 acres of reclaimed – and as yet undeveloped – land along the North Leith shore.

Still from the film “Leith Breakwater” of 1942, showing construction, from the collection of the BFI

This land, adjacent to docks and rails, was absolutely perfect for the construction of the large Mulberry sections, launching them into the basin,and fitting them out and storing them until they were needed. But a yard was needed, so a call went out to Hartlepool. That call was answered by two engineers, Robert William Newson and Mr E. Parkinson, who were specialists in the construction of airfields. They came up to Leith with some foremen and set about building a shipyard from scratch. Within months it was complete, with 4 berths, offices, workshops, stores, cranes and 3 miles of internal railways. You can see the remains of the yard in the centre of this 1951 aerial photo. Newhaven is at the top, North Leith on the left. The (then) new Caledonia Mill foundations are being built at the bottom.

SAW036161 SCOTLAND (1951). An oblique aerial photograph taken facing West. From Britain from Above. © Historic Environment Scotland.

Findlays oversaw the operation, but various tasks were further subcontracted. The steel sections were provided by Leith steelyard Redpath Brown & Co., who also worked out the production drawings. The Lanarkshire Welding Co. employed much of the workforce. Welding was used as it used less steel than riveting and while a riveter took years of training, a welder could be trained in days. Men and women from unskilled trades were signed up, 200 in all, to be welders. The foremen were fabricators and shipyard men, many from the northeast of England. A large contingent of skilled labour was seconded in from Henry Robb & Co., the main shipyard in Leith, who were just next door. The Robbs workers could concentrate on the more demanding and specialised tasks, leaving fabrication to the new recruits.

Construction began in November 1943 as soon as the yard was ready. Prefabricated components for the Spuds arrived in Leith by rail – from the St. Andrews steel yard of Redpaths (just up the road) from Lanarkshire and from the Clyde – where they were welded together, launched sideways into the dock basin, and floated up to Newhaven for fitting out.

Mulberry construction at North Leith in 1944. © Edinburgh City Libraries

Fitting out was done on the Fishmarket Quay at Newhaven, including all the plumbing, carpentry and electrics, and fitting the diesel-electric winches that hauled the pier section up and down on its legs to match the tides.

“Whales” : constructing pierheads for Mulberry Harbour, 1944 by war artist James Miller © IWM ART LD 4137

By the end of January 1944 the first Spud was ready and was launched sideways into the basin in full view of the residents of the tenements of Lindsay Road and Annfield, who were oblivious to what they watching enter the water.

Mulberry at Leith Yard – No 1 pierhead takes the water. © Edinburgh City Libraries

But they weren’t moving fast enough, not nearly fast enough. Operation Overlord was merely 4 months away (not that the workers knew it), so a herculean effort was commenced with round-the-clock working at breakneck speed. Four Spuds could be under construction on the stocks at once, with two more fitting out at Newhaven. The workforce rose to the task and before long they were up to speed and were launching a Spud with a loud splash of the waters of the Forth every 5 days.

Spud production line at North Leith. © Edinburgh City Libraries

The Spuds were built in record time at Leith but even that wasn’t enough, so four more were built at Conwy in Wales and five at the Cairnryan Military Port. At the latter location, civilian workers from Leith were sent across to Galloway to construct the first before the Army’s own engineers – trained in welding on break times – took over. Each unit was 200ft long, 60ft wide, 27ft high (not including its legs) and weighed 1,000 tons. Appropriately, they would be towed to England and then to the beaches by the large salvage tugs built next door by Henry Robbs in Leith during the war for the Admiralty.

Completed Spuds awaiting the Normandy beaches in Leith Docks. © Edinburgh City Libraries

When the Spuds were complete, Leith turned its attention to other Mulberry parts, floating concrete intermediate sections known as Hippos, which were sunk to the sea bed and supported road sections above them on their way to the beaches. They were 75ft long. displaced 220 tons and were produced at the rate of one every three and a half days. In just 195 days, thirteen Spuds and sixteen Hippos were built at Leith – all on schedule – and totalling over 16,000 tons, at a brand new yard by a workforce many of whom had never so much as picked up a hammer, never mind a welding torch, in their lives.

On the afternoon of June 6th 1944, 400 Mulberry components totalling 1.5 million tons, set off from the south coat of England for the invasion beaches. In the lead were Robb’s powerful salvage tugs like Bustler, Samsonia, Growler and Hesperia.

HMRT Bustler. IWM A28784

The Mulberries were put together from the 8th June onwards and were almost complete on the 19th when disaster struck and a 3 day storm, the worst to hit the Normandy coast in summer in 40 years, struck. Mulberry B – at Gold beach – was damaged and the American A was largely wrecked.

Wrecked pontoon causeway of one of the Mulberry” harbours, following the storm of 19–22 June 1944. US Navy Photo #: 80-G-359462

Mulberry B, the British one, was christened “Port Winston” and was repaired and expanded with components from the wrecked American Mulberry A. Designed to last 3 months, it ended up serving for 10. On it would be landed 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tons of supplies.

The workers at Leith had little idea what they had been building – although many could have hazarded a guess – but were soon rewarded with newsreel and newspaper coverage of the Mulberries once they were no longer a secret.

Newspaper article on Mulberry Harbours from 1944. Western Morning News – Monday 23 October 1944

An interesting side part of the Mulberry story was that the model railway company Bassett-Lowke had been commissioned to build scale models of them to help train the military in how they went together and were used.

‘Mulberry Harbour Models, Scale 1/4″ – 1 [foot]’ by Bassett-Lowke

The models were sent on a touring exhibition of the country in 1945 to show them off to the public. They were show in in Scotland at J. D. Cuthbertson & Co. on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, but sadly never came to Leith to show the workers the vast scale of what they had achieved.

Some of the Mulberry Harbour models by Bassett-Lowke, exhibited in London in 1945. Illustrated London News – Saturday 06 January 1945

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Operation Hummer I Nord: the thread about a bumbling German espionage attempt, stopped in its tracks at Waverley

Scene. Edinburgh Waverley, 9PM, Sept. 30 1940. A man lingers in the shadows by a bookstall, a hand in his pocket. He watches the left luggage counter, waiting anxiously. He steps forward and in the same instant is caught in a vice-like grip. For Werner Walti, the war is over.

The porter who has accosted him propels him into the luggage office, at the same time twisting the arm from the pocket to reveal a Mauser pistol. The man cries out, “I am not German, I am Swiss!” Fourteen hours previously, a cold and wet Werner Walti appeared out of the morning darkness at the tiny Buckpool Station on Scotland’s Moray coast, clutching a two damp cases. In a foreign accent he enquired where he was (the station signs had been removed), and when the next train to Aberdeen was.

Buckpool Station. View westward, towards Elgin, 1961. CC-by-SA Ben Brooksbank

On finding out he had just missed it, he was directed to Buckie Station, a mile up the line, where he could catch the 9:58 to Aberdeen. He was told to take the bus, but tried to buy his 2d fair with a 10/- note and the clippie could not give him change. At 07:45 he presents himself at Buckie station and purchases a ticket via Aberdeen to Edinburgh. With 2 hours to wait, he occupies himself staring at the timetables in minute detail. “Have you lost a train sir?” enquires the porter. Flustered, he shows his ticket and leaves.

Buckie Station. 1961. CC-by-SA Ben Brooksbank.

At that same time, a few miles to the west in Port Gordon, PC Robert Grieve – irked at being awakened from his bed so early in the morning – is on the telephone to his superior at Buckie to break the news: He has two German spies in his custody!

The suspicions of John Donald, stationmaster at Port Gordon, were aroused when two bedraggled foreigners arrived at his station first thing that morning and asked where they were. Checking a map, they bought 2 tickets to Forres. John Donald noticed the wad of notes they paid from. John Donald’s suspicious were further aroused as they were very wet below the knees, their clothes stained white with salt. Alarm bells really rang for Donald when one of the pair pulled a large sausage from his pocket and began cutting and eating slices from it with a knife. He sent for PC Grieve who promptly arrived to inspect papers. The couple, a man and a woman, presented refugee identity cards. But Grieve was not satisfied; why were the cards not stamped? Why were they completed in European style handwriting with the 7s crossed through? Inspector Simpson is sent for from Buckie and arrives to search the suspects. He noted the identity cards were numbered consecutively. He noted the 19 rounds of pistol ammunition; £327 in bank notes; a list of RAF bases; a torch marked “Made in Bohemia“; and a German sausage.

Forcing open the couple’s suitcase, Simpson finds a loaded Mauser pistol, a morse radio set and encoding wheels. Francois de Deeker and Vera Erikson – as their papers identify them – are placed under arrest, and the Inspector phones his superiors, who phone their superiors. Far off in Edinburgh, Peter Perfect’s telephone soon rang. It was Banffshire Constabulary and after a brief conversation he jumped into his car and set off at once for Buckie, a 5.5 hour drive away. Peter Perfect was not just a great name, he was MI5’s top man in Scotland. A few hours later, Peter Perfect is on the road and Werner Walti, newly arrived in Aberdeen, boards the Edinburgh train. Back in Banffshire, coastguards on the beach between Port Gordon and Buckie are hauling ashore a rubber raft, near where the Gollachy Burn enters Spey Bay.

Beach at Gollachy, CC Gordon James Brown.Rubber raft retrieved from Spey Bay. © National Museums of Scotland

Peter Perfect arrives in Buckie to be presented with the raft, and with Vera Erikson now claiming to be Vera de Cottain Chalbur, that her companion is a German agent that she is to guide to London, and that if Perfect will only phone Captain King in London, he will vouch for her.

Vera Schalburg

Vera also reveals that there’s another spy on the loose in northern Scotland! A search of the shore turns up his foreign-made rubber boots. A full-blown spy hunt swings in to operation. It’s not long before staff at Buckpool and Buckie station are telling of their curious passenger “Which way did he go?” To Aberdeen. The phone wires buzz once more and soon the Police in that city question the station staff there. Yes, a man answering that description got off the late-running 1004 from Buckie and yes, he joined the lunchtime express to Edinburgh. He doesn’t know it yet, but the noose is silently tightening around Werner Walti’s neck. But for now he is free, and on arriving at Waverley he leaves his suitcase at left luggage and heads off into the city. 40 minutes later, the telephone rings at Police HQ in Edinburgh.

1 Parliament Square, former Edinburgh City Police Chambers.

It is now 10 past 5 in the evening, and Detective Superintendent William Merrilees, head of CID, is furious that he is only just finding out now that he has a spy on the loose in his city. Every spare man is at once sent out to make enquiries, Merrilees himself heads to Waverley station.

William Merrilees.

Merrilees is a policeman with a fearsome reputation. A former shipyard worker, “Wee Willie” is comically short, missing the fingers on his left hand and is completely fearless. A one-time prize boxer, with a “fist like a stone mallet”, he strikes first and asks questions later. He is patient in a stakeout and a master of disguise, having honed his skills in the city’s vice squad tackling “shebeening”, street prostitution, flashers and high class brothels. He also waged an uncompromising, self-declared one-man “war on homosexuality” in the city.

At Waverley, the police quickly track down Walti’s suitcase, it is damn, and has traces of sand and salt on it. A board attendant is found who had carried it there for a passenger – a porter’s job – in the hope of a tip, and describes the owner as matching the man at Buckie. Merrilees wastes no more time and forces the case open to reveal a wireless transmitter. That is all the evidence he needs, and he fills the station with plainclothes officers, pairing them up with WVS women so that they look less conspicuous.

Werner Walti’s wireless suitcase transmitter. © IWM (COM 1500)

He himself finds a suitably short railway porter – Thomas Ferguson – and borrows his uniform. He and the board attendant – Thomas Cameron, aged 17 -take up position near the left luggage counter and wait. And wait. And wait, for three long hours.

William Merilees with Walti’s suitcase and the uniform of a railway porter

A few minutes before 9PM, a hesitant Werner Walti starts down Waverley Steps towards the station. He has wandered the cold, damp city for hours, blending in with the crowds. He has looked in the windows of numerous restaurants, and although he is hungry he feels too sick to eat.

Waverley Steps in 1943. This is photograph D 15665 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

In the station, Walti lingers near the left luggage office for a few minutes. Is that porter looking at him? He spots the board attendant who had helped him earlier that day and – piqued with a temporary confidence – he strides up to the desk to reclaim his suitcase.

Edinburgh Waverley station by night. CC-SA 4.0, Lorna M Campbell

As he does so, it is no porter who accosts him, it is “Wee Willie” Merilees, who is quickly joined by fellow detectives of the Edinburgh Police: Detective Lieutenant Cormack, Detective Inspector Sutherland and Detective Sergeant Swan. Thinking they have disarmed their suspect, they turn their attention to his possessions, held in a small briefcase; Walti has other ideas and pulls a concealed knife on his captors, but he is quickly disarmed by Constable McCowan and Reservist Fair. With the suspect now properly restrained, they turn back to his briefcase and possessions. Every item is more incriminating than the rest. There is more pistol ammunition; £190 in Bank if England Notes; a British ID card; a forged Swiss passport with no immigration stamps.

Walti’s forged Swiss passport © National Museums of Scotland

There is a compass; various pills; 11 maps of Scotland and England, marking “Flugplatz” (airfields) and overprinted with Luftwaffe target grids. There are code books and there is a sheaf of graph paper marked the property of the Commanding Officer of the Luftwaffe in Norway!

Description of possessions seized from Werner Walti by the Police, from his official case file. Crown Copyright, National Archives KV 2/1704

Walti and his “My First German Spy Kit” are bundled into the nearest vehicle – an Ambulance – and taken to Police Headquarters. Before it had ever got going, Operation Brummer 1 Nord has been nipped in the bud by the Railwaymen of Banffshire and the Scottish Polis. So who were these three damp, unhappy individuals who appeared to have washed up on the north coast of Scotland without a clue and without a hope? And how did they come to be there? Winding the clock back 24hrs and crossing the North Sea to Stavanger in occupied Norway, 3 individuals, Robert Petter (AKA Werner Walti), Karl Drücke (AKA Francois de Deeker) and Vera Schalburg (AKA Vera Ericson) climb the ladder from a small boat into a Luftwaffe He 115 seaplane

Finnish air force Heinkel He 115A on lake Höytiäinen. August 1941. PD

Things were already not going well. The weather has put them a few days behind schedule and all are sore; last night the car they were in crashed and their companion and leader – Abwehr agent Capt. Hans Dierks lies dead on a Norwegian mortuary slab as a result. A few hours later and a few hundred miles across the North Sea, they clamber into their inflatable boat on the dark, choppy waters of Spey Bay. 3 bicycles follow from the plane and – threatening to swap the dinghy – are promptly tossed overboard, as the seaplane takes off for Norway

They are dropped near the coast, but with only folding paddles and working against the wind and currents it takes them four hours to get near enough to the shore to wade onto the beach, wet and bedraggled and with no bicycles and no clue where they are. Shivering on the beach, they share a quick snack of apples and some German sausage and decide to split up on foot and find railway stations. Walti heads east for Buckpool; de Deeker and Ericson head west for Port Gordon.

OS 1:25,000 map, 1938-55, showing Port Gordon and Buckpool. The spies came ashore near the burn almost halfway between each village.

Less than 24 hours later, all three find themselves reunited in unfortunate circumstances at Edinburgh Police HQ, about to head south under armed guard to face Lt. Col. W. Edward Hinchley-Cooke, the German-educated top interrogator of the British Secret Service.

Lt. Col. William Edward Hinchley-Cooke

In London, shortly thereafter, the printing presses of the “Daily Herald” will clatter into action and print a front-page story that will ultimately seal the fate of two of the three agents. They are the only paper to print it, and they never should have.

Daily Herald, 2nd October, 1940

Under interrogation, de Deeker (Drücke) gives up little. It’s not that he is a master at resisting Hinchley-Cooke’s inquisition, it’s just that he has very little to tell. Walti is similarly uncooperative, but eventually gives a statement in German to confirm how he arrived.

Transcript of Walti’s statement, from his official case file. Crown Copyright, National Archives KV 2/1704

One interesting fact that Hinchley-Cooke extracts from Walti is the codeword he was to give his handler in London – “I am coming from Glasgow”. Walti can have no idea that his handler was SNOW, a chain-smoking Welsh Nationalist and a British double agent. Vera Erikson, aka de Cottain Chalbur, aka Schalburg on the other hand is talking for her life. The Captain King that she asked Peter Perfect to contact is none other than Max Knight, head of MI5’s counter-subversion division. Max Knight is none other than they legendary “M”. Before the war, Vera – a Russian exile – had worked in a Mayfair hairdressers and had been on the payroll of “M”, passing on low-grade society gossip picked up during her work. She is of little real intelligence value, but is desperate to save her neck and agrees to cooperate.

A secret memo soon seals the fate of Walti. As the press has already blown his existence, and as he is uncooperative and possibly suicidal, it is decided to make an example of him and hand him over to Capt. Hancock-Nunn, for prosecution under the Treachery Act, 1940.

Memo deciding to hand Walti over for prosecution. Crown Copyright, National Archives KV 2/1704

de Deeker is even less helpful than Walti and is given the same fate. Both are sent to the ominous sounding Camp 020 to await trial. They say little at Bow Street Magistrate’s Court when they are charged; without legal representation and understanding little of what was happening. In June 1941, both are tried by jury infront of Justice Cyril Asquith. Both enter a plea of not guilty. The trial is paused for a day as both Asquith and the Solicitor General are unhappy that neither man have legal representation, and agree they should have it.

Werner Walti’s photo from his official case file. Crown Copyright, National Archives KV 2/1704

The court agrees to pay for barristers for each man out of the reams of notes confiscated off of them by the Scottish police – currently sitting amongst the exhibits in that very court room. Walti will be represented by J. C. Whitebrook. An attempt at a fair trial is made – but neither defendant helps themselves and both repeatedly contradict and perjure themselves, perhaps due to their lack of comprehension of the language and what is actually happening. On June 16th 1941, both are found guilty. Appeals fail. A simple note inserted in Walti’s file records his fate. de Deeker suffers the same. The hangman is Albert Pierrepoint, who will hang 15 German spies during the war and post-war, Lord Haw-Haw and 226 Nazi war-criminals

File note on the fate of Werner Walti. Crown Copyright, National Archives KV 2/1704

Vera Schalburg saves herself by talking freely and readily agrees to be “turned”, thus becomes a double-agent. She is sent into internment on the Isle of Man to spy on her fellow captives. Here she will contract pneumonia, from which she will die after the war in Hamburg aged 31.

Illustration by an internee of the camp on Douglas promenade, drawn by an internee © Manx National Heritage Library and Archives

In 1942, the Edinburgh Evening News is given permission to print 3 simple paragraphs referring to the fate of Werner Walti. His file in the National Archive records that repeated requests by the paper to run the full story are turned down by MI5, well into the 1950s.

Edinburgh Evening News – Friday 13 March 1942

The Operation Brummer missions were an unmitigated, amateurish failure. As is Operation Lena – the overarching German mission to insert agents into Britain. Operation Sealion, the invasion for which they are meant to gather intelligence, will never take place.

Official German map from Operation Sealion planning. © IWM Documents 11929

Abwehr’s bumbling spying attempts against Britain were a complete disaster. Every single agent they sent was captured and either executed or turned under the Double-Cross System, which did untold, irreparable damage to the Nazi war effort.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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An Awful Endurance: the thread about the seizure of “SS Alster” and the sinking of “Empire Endurance”

Sometimes I go looking for interesting rabbit holes to go down in the hopes of finding a story. Sometimes people send me the strand that will lead me to a thread of the story. And sometimes unique and unusual inspiration just drops itself straight into my inbox, begging to be looked into.

You see way back whenever, I set up email alerts for online auction houses with the words “Edinburgh” or “Leith“, to keep a watchful eye on whatever interesting objets may be coming up for sale with those words in the listing. Mainly it’s sets of Edinburgh Crystal, kitsch Duke of Edinburgh memorabilia or job lots of Prue Leith cookbooks: but sometimes it will be something unusual. Very occasionally it’s something very unusual indeed, something you never knew you were looking for until it arrived in your email at 3:30AM one morning. And today’s Auction House Artefact is one such, because it is the original “Writ of Summons” from the WW2 seizure of the German merchant ship SS Alster in Leith in June 1940: the prize rules dictating that the officer who served this writ had to board the vessel and nail this very paper to its mast!

Writ of Summons for the seizure of SS Alster, Leith, June 13th 1940.

The Alster was a 12,000 deadweight tonnage cargo ship of the German Norddeutscher Lloyd line (NDL). Built in Hamburg in 1927, she was intended to sail the routes between Bremen, Australia and the far east. Her name is taken from a tributary river of the Elbe which flows through the city and port of Hamburg.

SS Alster in 1929, postcard in the Ernest G. Best collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales PXE 722/120

The ship was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) in 1940 in advance of the German invasion of Norway. She surreptitiously departed for that country on April 3rd, destination Narvik, loaded up with military supplies. On board were guns, ammunition, 80 lorries, thousands of tons of coke fuel, food, hundreds of tons of hay for horses and even toys to distribute to children in a hearts and minds effort. She arrived in Norwegian waters under cover of being a regular merchant ship four days before the invasion proper began in order that she would be in position and ready to supply the landing. The old Norwegian torpedo boat Trygg was deceived and cleared her to pass and escorted her towards land.

Norwegian Navy torpedo boat Trygg

On the 8th April Alster reached Vestfjorden and was warned off of a British minefield by a Norwegian patrol boat Syrian. This latter vessel, a converted trawler inspected the Alster and– deciding there was nothing odd about this heavily laden German merchant ship – let her pass on her way to Bodø. When war officially broke out two days later the Syrian caught up with Alster once again but, worried that the much larger ship was probably armed and carrying German troops, decided that discretion was the better part of valour and stood off. Instead, as the Alster plodded off at her leisurely top speed of 14 knots, Syrian passed the details to the Royal Navy instead. Realising the value of the thousands of tons of supplies in the merchantman, a force was quickly dispatched to capture her, consisting of the cruiser HMS Penelope and four destroyers led by HMS Icarus.

HMS Penelope in 1942. Photograph FL4822 from the collection of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 8308-29)

On paper it was a hugely one-sided fight stacked in the favour of the Royal Navy, but things very quickly started to go wrong. The Penelope ran into a few navigational difficulties which caused her to run into the island of Fleinvær on April 11th. The big destroyer HMS Eskimo managed to pull the damaged ship free and, with the assistance of Norwegian tugs, on to Skjelfjorden where temporary repairs could be made. She would limp back to the UK and be out of the war for 14 months, requiring an extensive rebuild below the water line.

The crippled HMS Penelope being shepherded by Norwegian tugs in Skjelfjorden.

The next day it was Eskimo, erstwhile saviour of Penelope, that needed help when the German destroyer Georg Thiele hit her with a torpedo in the Second Battle of Narvik, causing a significant rearrangement and truncation of her bows. Amazingly, despite the damage, Eskimo survived, was patched up at Skjelfjorden and sent back to the Tyne to get a new front end. She was back in action within 5 months, going on to survive the war.

Eskimo after losing her bow during the Second Battle of Narvik. Photograph the War Office’s official photographer, N233 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

It was thus left to HMS Icarus to round up the Alster The crew of the German ship tried and failed to set of a scuttling charge and quickly found themselves British captives. The Royal Navy was surprised to find that the German captain was none other than Oskar Scharf, the Norddeutscher Lloyd line’s most senior officer and something of a celebrity in maritime circles.

HMS Icarus in 1942. © IWM FL 14022

Scharf was – or had been – the captain of the NDL transatlantic liner Europa, the pride of the fleet. He found himself on the Alster as a demotion after it proved impossible for him to work under the political supervision of the Nazi party and Robert Ley. Ley was a fanatic, close to Hitler and in charge of the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF).

NDL liner Europa prior to her maiden voyage. Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-09251 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Scharf was adamant to the end of his days that he was no Nazi . Although he admitted he had joined the party for a year from 1934-35, this he said was purely in order to keep his job. His later actions would lend some credence to that position and as an old fashioned captain, he was not used to taking orders on his own ship, particularly political orders, and he was not about to change. But Scharf was also a German officer and therefore wasn’t about to hand over his ship to the Royal Navy without a struggle: six of his men would die resisting the boarding parties.

Oskar Scharf on board the NDL liner Europa before the war

The captive Alster and her crew were moved to the British advanced naval base at Skjelfjord and all the supplies and materiel aboard were turned over to the Norwegians who were more than happy to turn them against their former owners. The Royal Navy used the ship as a temporary base for repairing ships; ironically one of the first ships she would assist would be the truncated Eskimo. Scharf and his crew, still aboard, managed to make one more attempt to scuttle their ship by opening seawater valves to try and flood the ship. They failed again and the officers found themselves taken off for their trouble and locked up on other Royal Navy ships for onward transport to Scotland.

The Navy now needed a prize crew to man the Alster and as many of the men of the cruiser Penelope now found themselves without a ship to sail they were put on-board and given the task. The Germans now made multiple attempts to sink her by aerial bombing, but somehow she survived them all.

Alster under attack by German bombs, London Daily News, 11 July 1940

On April 27th, Alster arrived in Tromsø to unload the last of her supplies for the Norwegian forces defending that port. To satisfy Navy regulations the British consul observed the unloading and gave the Norwegians an official receipt. After almost a month, she was then sent on to the port of Kirkenes in the far north of the country to load 10,000 tons of iron ore to be taken to the UK. On her way south again catastrophe was narrowly averted after she was sighted and attacked by the British submarine HMS Truant. This was despite her having been made aware of the submarine’s patrol area and being given orders to avoid it, and despite messages being sent to Truant to make her aware the vessel was friendly. Fortuitously the two torpedoes fired at Alster missed and exploded harmlessly on the shore.

HMS Truant. Official Royal Navy photograph, FL22602 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 8308-29)

Four days after this narrow escape, she finally departed Norwegian waters for the last time and sailed across the North Sea. As well as her cargo she evacuated 209 British and 46 Norwegian military personnel, 72 German prisoners of war (her crew, minus the officers who made their way separately) and the surviving forward gun turret from HMS Eskimo, which currently had little use for it in her new configuration. British newspapers reported the capture of the Alster with great enthusiasm as there wasn’t much other good news to tell at the time, plus Captain Scharf was a high-status prisoner of war and his old ship the Europa was a household name.

A rather dejected looking Oskar Scharf arriving in Scotland as a prisoner. Daily Record, April 1940.

Alster unloaded her passengers at Scapa Flow on 31st May and arrived at the naval base of Rosyth on the Firth of Forth on June 4th. Shortly thereafter, she was sent across the Firth to Leith to unload and conclude the legal formalities of making her a prize. And so it was that Robert Robertson, a man from Morningside and a Customs & Excise Officer at the Leith Custom House, went aboard the ship on the 13th of the month and nailed the official writ to the mast. At a stroke, she officially became the property of the British Admiralty.

Detail of the Writ served by Robert Robertson on the Alster in LeithDetail of the Writ served by Robert Robertson on the Alster in Leith

The ship was now passed to the Ministry of War Transport who made her an Empire Ship, a ship owned by the Government and allocated to a British merchant shipping company to make good wartime losses. Her new managers were Alfred Booth & Co. of Liverpool. After being refitted to bring her to a British standard and being renamed SS Empire Endurance she left Southend in Convoy FN255 and started her new career in the middle of the Battle of the Atlantic, plying the dangerous waters between British ports and Canada. This she did for six months after which she was ordered to Egypt via Cape Town with a mixed load of cargo and passengers. She departed on this new journey from the Welsh port of Milford Haven on the 19th April 1941.

Early the next morning, at 3:32AM German time she was hit by a torpedo from the German submarine U73. She was far out into the Atlantic, some 425 miles southwest of Rockall, and 460 miles west of the nearest dry land on the west coast of Ireland. A second torpedo 25 minutes later broke her in two and sent her to the bottom, with the ultimate loss of 66 souls from the 95 passengers and crew on board. The Canadian warship HMCS Trillium found and picked up twenty-four survivors (sixteen merchant seamen and eight servicemen who were on board to man the guns) the next day, landing them at Greenock four days later.

Officers on the bridge of Canadian corvette HMCS Trillium. Credit National Defence – Canadian Navy Heritage website. Image Negative Number JT-159

Another lifeboat had been filled with survivors but was destroyed when the second torpedo hit the ship and only one of the occupants survived. He was blown overboard but made it into a further lifeboat. Also sent into the water at this time was the Captain, William Willis R. D. Torkington, who was was also picked up. David Selwyn Davies, the Chief Officer, took charge of the survivors in this boat and was credited with pulling his injured captain aboard. For these few survivors, the name Endurance would be cruelly ironic, as they would spend the next nineteen days adrift in an open lifeboat in the North Atlantic Ocean.

“The lifeboat amongst the wreckage”, watercolour and drawing by John Kingsley Cook depicting the sinking of the Empire Guillemot in 1941. Royal Museums Greenwich ZBA5373

As the senior ranking man in the boat, Davies took charge as best as he could. His board was not found – by the Royal Mail Line liner Highland Brigade – until the 9th of May. During this time twenty of those onboard had died and only eight remained alive, the last two on the day of rescue. Of the slim remainder who made it aboard the Highland Brigade, three more died aboard her including the Captain and Second Engineer. A fourth would die in hospital in Liverpool, leaving only four survivors from the boat. Including the first boat, only twenty souls survived from the eighty-five who had been onboard Empire Endurance. (Thank you to Kirby Grant for providing me with additional details and corrected numbers for the losses and survivors from the ship.)

MV Highland Brigade post-war in 1946, photo taken from an aircraft. She was bound for Singapore with Indian Troops when she hit a mine and had to be brought in with the assistance of the tugs. She made it safely in to Singapore with no loss of life. IWM SE 6360

For these efforts he would receive the MBE and the Lloyd’s Medal. “No one would have lived to be rescued but for the skill, seamanship and courage of the chief officer” reported the London Gazette.

19 Days in an Open Board. Press & Journal, October 8th 1941

Oskar Scharf found himself sent to Canada for internment. Because of his seniority and because he was neither a military or political man, he was put in charge of the internees in Camp R in the pleasant lakeside township of Red Rock, Ontario. This institution had around 1,100 inmates, mainly merchant and naval seamen. Some were ardent Nazis, others were Communists, many were politically apathetic and amongst their number there were 78 Jews, interned in Britain as “enemy aliens“, including 11 of school age. Scharf is credited in a number of sources as going out of his way to protect the Jews in his charge from the Nazis within his ranks. This he did for about 6 months before the authorities came to their senses and released the Jewish inmates back to Britain in January 1941.

Scharf had an awkward balancing act to maintain between those he was in charge of and his Canadian captors – with whom he was no collaborator. He found that the Nazis in the camp went out of their way to make life difficult for him, they heckled and humiliated him for refusing to give a “Sieg Heil” after official announcements. The Canadian authorities eventually decided that Scharf posed no threat and somewhat surprisingly released him in April 1944, allowing him the option to return to Germany as a civilian. This he did, departing for home on a Swedish ship in New York and taking a dangerous and convoluted journey via Algiers, Barcelona and Marseilles. He was reunited with his family after a 4 year absence but would be interrogated by the Gestapo on-and-off until the end of the war. Nevertheless, he was given back his job and rank with NDL and put back in charge of the liner Europa which was laid up in Bremerhaven as a barracks ship.

An American photo of the camouflaged Europa in Bremerhaven in May 1945

He was still in charge of her in May 1945 when first the British and then the Americans entered Bremerhaven, capturing the port and the ship. The Americans claimed her as a war prize, Scharf symbolically handing over his pistol to an American sailor. He thus found himself in the unusual position of having not one but two of his ships boarded and taken off his hands by the Allies in the war. However the Americans had need of the Europa, commissioning her into their navy as USS Europa, for use as a transport ship repatriating servicemen from Europe back home across the Atlantic. As they didn’t know how to operate her Scharf and some of his officers were allowed to remain on board to ensure the operation of the ship. They departed for Southampton, picked up the first 4,500 men for repatriation, arriving in New York on September 24th 1945 under Scharf’s command.

USS Europa returns to New York in September 1945. Life Magazine Photo

Europa made 3 further transatlantic repatriation trips, before being laid up in her home port of Bremerhaven in May 1946 and decommissioned by the US Navy. Later that year she was allocated to France as a war reparation, and given to the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) line, who renamed her Liberté and refitted her for post-war service as their flagship, to replace the SS Normandie which had been lost in a wartime accident.

SS Liberté in the 1950s. CC-by-SA 3.0 Frederic Logghe

Scharf resigned from the NDL after the war and took up the job of port captain of Bremerhaven, helping oversee the restoration of the docks. The post-war de-Nazification process classified him as Level II (Follower), which was the 2nd lowest level and which incurred a fine – nearly worthless as it was denominated in Reichsmarks – of 18,000 Marks. He died in 1953, aged 67.

Oskar Scharf in 1953, the year of his death. Photo by Wolfgang Scharf.

Chief Officer Selwyn Davies MBE returned home to Moreton in Cheshire, to his neat suburban house, his wife Helen and his daughter Sadie. He died at home in 1952, aged 64.

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The thread about a charity shop book that lead to the story of Captain William Thomson Dawson and the loss of the Leith tanker “Peder Bogen”

This thread was originally written and published in April 2023.

I was recently fortunate to acquire this book on the history of the Trinity House in Leith at my favourite charity book shop (St. Columba’s in Canonmills, go visit them!), for a very reasonable price.

The History of Trinity House of Leith, by Dr. John Mason.

It is signed on the inside cover, not by the author as I first thought, but by a “Captain Dawson OBE, the Master of Trinity House”.

30th August 1968. With best wishes to Captain Kerr. From Captain Dawson OBE, Master of Trinity House.

The award of the OBE piqued my interest enough to look up our Captain Dawson, and it did not take long to find him: William Thomson Dawson. This is why his signature reads “W. Thomson“. Captain Dawson was a local man, born in Leith in 1910, the son of Margaret Alexander and James Dawson – a merchant navy officer. He was named after his grandfather, a Leith shipmaster. Our Captain Dawson was master of the Leith tanker SS Peder Bogen, a tanker owned by Leith’s Christian Salvesen shipping line. This steam-powered ship was 480 feet long, 62 feet wide and drew 37 feet (146 x 18.9 x 11.2m) with a gross tonnage (a measure of the carrying capacity of a merchant ship) of some 9,700 tons.

The Peder Bogen. © Edinburgh University Salvesen Archive. Coll-36 (2nd tranche. C1. Photographs, No.18)

The Peder Bogen had been built in the Dutch city of Dordrecht in 1925 for the Norwegian whaling company Johan Rasmussen, being sold to the Salvesen’s whaling subsidiary The South Georgia Company in 1933, along with the base of Stromness on that island. She was a supply ship supporting the Salvesen’s whaling operations and fleet at South Georgia, carrying fuel and goods south and whale oil north, with the seasons.

When war broke out, the Peder Bogen found itself called up for convoy duty, bringing precious fuel oil east across the Atlantic, for which purposes she was given a token armament for self defence. She had made a number of such passages during the first years of the war until on 19th March 1942 she left Port of Spain in Trinidad, heading for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she would join an eastbound convoy across the Atlantic. On board she had 11,000 tons of fuel oil for the Admiralty 52 crew (including Dawson) and a single passenger, the radio operator of the French tanker SS Melpomene, which had been sunk a few weeks previously en route from Belfast to Baton Rouge.

Peder Bogen, in New York, 1941. User upload to Ships Nostalgia

The journey north proceeded quietly for 4 days, until on the 23rd March she was hit without warning by two torpedoes from the Italian submarine Morosino, about 700 miles northeast of Puerto Rico and 745 miles southeast of Bermuda, in the position 24° 25′ 48″N by 57° 26′ 24″W.

Italian submarine Comandante Cappelini, a sister ship of Morosini

The ship was holed, and with water pouring into her tanks and machinery spaces and the prospect of the 11,000 tons of oil (not to mention the ships own 2,000 tons of fuel) catching fire, Dawson assembled his crew on deck. He ordered the crew to take to the lifeboats, but asked for volunteers to stay aboard and form a skeleton crew to see if there was a chance of saving the tanker and its precious cargo. He and five others remained on the Peder Bogen, relit the boilers, raised steam and began pumping the water out. They fought a losing battle, and when there was 16 feet of water in the engine room had to abandon the fight and join the lifeboats too. The two little boats then retreated a safe distance to await rescue. For the second time in 3 weeks, the unlucky radio operator of the Melpomene found himself abandoning a torpedoed tanker.

Three hours later, the Peder Bogen had still neither sunk nor caught fire, so once again Dawson and his volunteers made the brave decision to board her and try to save her. The Morosini however had been stalking them, and as they made to do this she surfaced just a mile distant and opened fire with her two 4″ deck guns. The Italian’s gunfire was inaccurate, and it took them 40 rounds to score 5 hits, enough to set the tanker on fire and seal her fate.

The crew were all safe however, and spent a rather unhappy night watching the remains of their ship and its cargo on fire. The next day the two lifeboats set a course for the Virgin islands before becoming separated. They were well equipped for their journey, with food, water and survival gear, and the weather was favourable, so their chances were good. After 4 days rowing against the winds, Dawson’s boat was sighted by the “Clyde-built” Spanish ship Gobeo, which took all aboard. The Spaniards were sympathetic to the plight of the British merchant mariners and treated them well. They landed them in Lisbon, Portugal, 3 weeks later. The men of the other boat, carrying the remains of the Peder Bogen’s crew under First Officer Duncan were picked up the following day after becoming separated. The Argentinian ship Rio Gallegos took them to New York, where they landed 4 days later on March 31st.

On April 14th 1942, The Scotsman reported the happy news to Leith that all onboard the ship had been saved. A table at the bottom of this page lists the names, home towns and ranks and roles of all of the men, as reported by the paper.Captain Dawson was awarded the OBE in 1943 for his part, having “showed splendid courage, resource and leadership and made determined efforts to save his ship in circumstances of great difficulty and danger “. Three of the engineering officers were awarded the MBE and two Firemen recieved the BEM.

Dawson was made Master of Trinity House in 1964, a position he held until 1977. His medals, cap and ephemera were sold at auction in December 2022.

Captain Dawson’s medals, hat and ephemera

The Morosini was lost at sea on August 8th 1942 with all hands, to causes unknown. In a curious twist to the tale, Captain Dawson’s father, Captain James Dawson, was almost certainly the Captain James Dawson of Leith who was master of the steamer Fingal when she was sunk by a torpedo or mine in the North Sea in March 1915. Six of the crew lost their lives that day. James Dawson, father to the 5 year old William, did not abandon his ship until it slipped under the water but survived.

London & Edinburgh Shipping Co. postcard featuring the Fingal, from 1906

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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NameRank / RoleHomeJ. E. S. CookChief OfficerEdinburghJ. Short3rd MateEdinburghJ. S. Cutt2nd Radio OperatorEdinburghD. G. RobertsonCarpenterGovanJ. SwanneyAble Bodied SeamanNorth Ronaldsay, OrkneyA. DuncanSailorGrantonT. RussellOrdinary SeamanEdinburghA. C. PeacockOrdinary SeamanDunbarA. FoxOrdinary SeamanGlasgowD. EvanDeck Hand–T. BarrasDeck Hand–L. AmphlettDeck Hand–G. ClarkDonkeymanGlasgowF. S. SteeleChief StewardEdinburghC. ClinchCookGrangemouthJ. McFadyenCabin BoyRothesayPaul BrodskyMess-room StewardEdinburghJ. D. ElderGalley BoyEdinburghG. MortensenAble Bodied SeamanDenmarkJ. GrayRadio Operator, Melpomene–W. M. DuncanFirst OfficerAberdeenJ. C. Gibson2nd MateGrantonW. Hayes1st Radio OperatorAustraliaE. McPheely2nd Radio OperatorEdinburghJ. R. PetersonBo’sunLerwickF. CowieAble Bodied SeamanLerwickA. MannAble Bodied SeamanMid Yell, ShetlandJ. MurrayAble Bodied SeamanEdinburghJ. H. TaylorAble Bodied SeamanNottinghamW. McGregorSailorLeithE. MeyerSailorLeithS. Porkim–GlasgowJ. D. Wood–EyemouthJ. DryburghChief EngineerLeithT. McKinnell2nd EngineerGlasgowR. Beattie3rd EngineerHawickJ. D. Reid4th EngineerDundeeW. G. McEwan5th EngineerMusselburghJ. McKeeDonkeymanMilngavieT. PricePumpmanGlasgowH. McKennaGreaserGlasgowB. BradyGreaserKilmarnockW. Aitken–StirlingshireS. ElliotFiremanBo’nessE. McDonaldFiremanGlasgowM. DohertyFiremanCoatbridgeJ. MelvinFiremanGlasgowR. Cromb–GlasgowJ. Ker2nd CookBelfastD. BrownFiremanBo’nessW. A. EllerlyDeck Hand–J. McDonaldDeck Hand–Capt. W. T. DawsonMasterLeithSurvivors of the Peder Bogen, as reported in The Scotsman, 14th April 1942

#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

Soldier-turned-forger: the thread about the farcical execution of John Young

“Drawn at The Execution of John Young in the Grass Market, Edinbr., 1751” The description says “a crowd… in the foreground, beyond them the gallows officers with the condemned man on a platform“. Except that’s not quite what’s going on here… Let’s find out more!

Drawn at The Execution of John Young in the Grass Market, Edinbr., © The Trustees of the British Museum

The image is by the hand of Paul Sandby, the young English draughtsman who came to Edinburgh in the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion to turn the triangulations of William Roy’s survey of Scotland into the incredible illustrated map. Sandby also proved to be quite the artist and with his little gang of esteemed friends (including John Clerk of Eldin and Robert Adam) in his free time he would sketch the street scenes of the city. But this isn’t a thread about Paul Sandby, it’s a thread about the scene he drew and how not is quite what meets the eye.

John Young was an Irishman, born into a lower middle-class protestant family in Belfast. He had a good start in life, was educated and apprenticed to a linen draper. But when his master died, he ended up having to go to London for work, which he found as a clerk. But he had to abandon this position in a hurry however and fled London in disgrace after he got his master’s serving maid pregnant. On the road, with no prospects, he was easy prey for the Army’s recruiting sergeants and with liberal application of intoxicants he took the King’s Shilling

Soldier of the King’s Own / 4th Regiment of Foot, 1742

This was about 1744, the War of the Austrian Succession was raging, and the Army was in need of recruits. Being educated, intelligent and amenable, the officers liked him and the disgraced clerk actually found that military life in the ranks suited him. It was (apparently) the 4th Regiment of Foot (The King’s Own) that he joined and his manners and abilities quickly saw him promoted into the first sergeant’s vacancy that came along.

Shipped off to Flanders, John was said to be at Fontenoy when the Allied Army, the British contingent under the Duke of Cumberland, were defeated by the French under Louis XV. However most of the 4th missed the battle as they had been detached beforehand. Wherever he was, and whichever Regiment he was with, he apparently acquitted himself with bravery and was rewarded with promotion to company paymaster and with being sent back to England with a recruiting party to help replace the Army’s losses in Flanders.

Battle of Fontenoy 1745, by Pierre L’Enfant

It turned out that recruiting was also something John took to naturally. He signed men up on honest and frank terms and didn’t swindle them (or their families) out of their sign-on bounty. Again he was recognised by his superiors and a promotion to Sergeant Major was forthcoming. He rejoined his regiment in a hurry, as they had been shipped back to Britain along with the Duke of Cumberland to help put down the Jacobite Rebellion. (This fits with him being in the 4th). He was at the Battle of Falkirk Muir in January 1746, and apparently accounted for a few Jacobites with his Sergeant Major’s halberd. Although it was a Jacobite victory, it was a hollow one and they retreated from it.

The Battle of Falkirk Muir, 1746

John marched on with his Regiment after the retreating Jacobites and was at the bloody Battle of Culloden in April. Circumstances fit that he was in the 4th, the Grenadiers of whom are prominent in David Morier’s well known painting of that battle. The 4th were hit hardest of the Government units by the Highland charge, taking 25% losses.

An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745 by David Morier.

But John, and the 4th, survived the Jacobites and survived the battle. As a result of its performance and losses, the regiment remained in Scotland for “mopping up” duties, before being sent to garrison Edinburgh castle. John was sent off recruiting, reaching as far south as Bristol. Coming back to Edinburgh with plenty of recruits, he was sent off again, this time to Yorkshire. But it wasn’t just recruits who followed him back to Edinburgh on this occassion, he also had an innkeeper’s wife, with whom he had fallen in “criminal intercourse” with.

That might have been that, except the woman had cleared out her husband before fleeing. It wasn’t long before an aggrieved Yorkshire innkeeper pitched up in Edinburgh on the hunt for his wife, his money and a licentious recruiting Sergeant He didn’t take long to find all three; but John was saved from punishment on account of his having been ignorant of the wife’s theft and having not conspired with her, and the fact his officers liked him; he was a good soldier, and the army needed such men.

The 4th were shipping out anyway, so John was sent off with them to Inverness and (the first) Fort George, garrisoning the remains of it while preparations were made to build the bigger replacement at Ardersier. Coincidentally, Paul Sandby made a reconstruction illustration of it as it would have looked before the retreating Jacobites blew much of it up .

Fort George as it was in 1744, illustration (c. 1780) by Paul Sandby. Royal Academy of Arts

It was in Inverness that John became familiar with one of his new recruits, a man by the name of Parker who had served some time as a printer. John was company paymaster, and when assisting him one day, Parker mentioned how easy it would be to copy the bank notes if you knew how. John knew better than to continue the discussion in public, but managed to get Parker aside in a tavern and pick his brains. It would be easy, said he, if you could just get a note to copy, somewhere safe to copy it, and the materials to engrave a printing plate. John could do all three, and he took on a private room where Parker and another could work, “borrowed” a Royal Bank of Scotland note from the company purse, and acquired all the materials a forger might need from the Garrison’s supplies.

Parker was good to his word, soon he had produced some Royal Bank notes that couldn’t easily be told apart. They could get away with things for a reasonable time, if they were clever, as such promissory notes would circulate in the local economy for a good long while, rather than being sent back to Edinburgh to be reconciled with the accounts against which they were issued. And although he was a mere Sergeant Major, as a paymaster it was not unusual for John to have reason to be carrying and exchanging paper money.

Royal Bank of Scotland 20 Shilling note, 1745, of the sort forged by Young and Parker

They got away with it for at least 6 months, before their regiment got notice that it was leaving Inverness. It now seems that he may have been with the 24th Foot, the Earl of Ancram’s, rather than the 4th.

Soldier of 24th Regiment of Foot, 1742

The hitherto cautious John now over-reached himself, and before leaving Inverness he had an Aberdeen stocking manufacturer, Mr Gordon, convert £60 worth of notes into Sterling. This suited Gordon as it was safer than carrying “real” money on his journey home. Gordon left a merry trail of counterfeit paper notes across the north of Scotland as he made his way home from town to town and tavern to tavern. He was horrified to get back to Aberdeen and find notices in the newspapers from the directors of the Royal Bank that they were advising merchants in the north of Scotland that they were aware of counterfeit notes circulating and to please be on the lookout for them

Realising he had been swindled, Gordon went straight back to Inverness and called upon the Sheriff. It didn’t take long to put the facts together, and news was sent chasing along after the 24th that the law would like to ask one of their Sergeant Majors a few questions. The law caught up with the Regiment, and with John, in Glasgow. When arrested, he had the copper plate and 300 forged notes on his person.

He was sent to Edinburgh to stand trial. He was optimistic that he might be let off or treated leniently, but the embarrassed bankers of Edinburgh wanted an example made of him, and so it was. Parker and the other accomplice turned King’s evidence. The trial on November 9th 1750 lasted all of a day. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang. John prevailed upon his officers to intercede, on account of his good record, but they couldn’t, wouldn’t, or were of no avail. He was sent to the Tolbooth to await his fate.

Henry G. Duguid, The Old City Tolbooth and St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. CC-by-SA NGS

On the evening of 19th December, as was the custom, he was chained in the Iron Room, the “escape proof” cell where the condemned of Edinburgh spent their last night before the final walk to the gallows. The following morning, the magistrates and 2 ministers awoke him to read him his sentence. Did he have any objections? No he did not. Would he like to speak with the ministers? Yes he would. He asked to be excused with the latter for some “ghostly consolation” for a while.

Hall of the Old Tolbooth, c.1795, by William Clark © Edinburgh City Libraries

But John was less concerned with spiritual matter, his quick mind was instead hatching a plan. His sentence, which had just been read to him, had stated that he would be hung between 2 and 4 PM that afernoon. Having been misled by other prisoners, he assumed all he had to do was delay proceedings until after 4 and he would get a temporary reprieve. After prayers with the Ministers, he asked the men of God if they might give him a moment’s private contemplation, to prepare himself for his maker. This they readily agreed to. They left the cell, and he quietly pulled the door shut.What nobody was sure how he did it, but somehow he contrived to lock himself in the cell, and the ministers, magistrates and gaolers out of it.

When it was realised what he had done, no amount of pleading, shouting, or beating of the door could get John Young to come to his senses and accept his fate. “No“, said he, “in this place I am resolved to defend my life to the utmost of my power”. As he saw it, all he had to do was buy himself a few hours for another night on earth…

The tradesmen of the City were called, but they said it was impossible to break through the Iron Room’s door or wall without compromising the building. More likely they couldn’t be bothered with such heard work and found it all very funny. Time was ticking away. Perhaps John was going to get away with it. The magistrates summoned the Lord Provost, George Drummond, and together the combined minds of the city administration hit upon a simple scheme to thwart him. They had the town clock stopped!

Clock of the Netherbow Port, 1766, from an engraving by John Runciman entitled “
View of the Netherbow Port of Edinburgh from the West”. © Edinburgh City Libraries

This bought them the time they needed, and finally they resolved to smash through the floor of the room above the cell and get him out that way. This took 2 hours hard work but once a large enough hole was made, one of the Town Guard poked his musket through to help persuade him out. But John was a battle-hardened soldier and had faced worse than the Edinburgh town guard. Quick as you like he grabbed the barrel of the gun and pulled it to himself, “declaring, with an oath, that, if any man attempted to molest him, he would immediately dash out his brains“

William Lizars Home, 1800, the Edinburgh Old Town Guard © Edinburgh City Libraries

The gun however was unloaded, so the guardsman followed through the hole after it. He took the full force of the butt of it for his efforts, knocking him down, and it took 4 of his burly colleagues to subdue John Young. Asking if it was now after 4PM, he was informed that it was, but “he would be hanging even if it was after 8“. Realising the game was up, John resolved to be “no accessory to my own murder” and be uncooperative to his last. It took 8 guardsmen to carry him, head first, out of the Tolbooth. Refusing to walk, a cart had to be sourced, and he rode this, with the noose already around his neck, the short distance down the West Bow to his place of execution in the Grassmarket. James Skene’s sketch of 1827 shows a scene fundamentally unchanged from Sandby’s of 1750. The gallows is on the left, the structure on the right was used as a corn market.

Grassmarket and Bow, James Skene, 1827, © Edinburgh City Libraries

What I am pretty sure we can actually see in Sandby’s sketch is not a crowd watching the condemned ascend the gallows, it’s a scene of one waiting, in boredom and anticipation, wondering where is John Young? Where’s the afternoon’s promised gruesome entertainment?

The crowd in Sandby’s scene, talking amongst themselves, looking anywhere but at the “action” going on at the scaffold.

The guardsman on the left, the one with the Lochaber Axe, looks positively bored. Is his colleague on the right pushing back the restless crowd? And what – or who – is that arriving in the background on a cart…

Closer look at the scaffold and background in Sandby’s scene.

“John Young underwent the sentence of the law in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, about six o’clock on the evening“. Uncooperative to the last, he had to be carried up the scaffold. It apparently took a whole 30 minutes for his desperate cling to life to be extinguished. It is unclear what motivated him; he was not known as a spender of money or an indulger in drinking or gambling. His men and his officers liked him, he was otherwise a good, honest and brave solider, and there seems little in life he desired that his pay could not cover

It is not known either where John Young’s final resting place was. No Edinburgh Kirk recorded his death or burial in their registers that I can find. The newspapers are the only record of his exploits, his final story being printed far and wide. “This poor man had served in the army many years, with reputation, was beloved by his officers, being never before convicted of the least offence, and was said to have been recommended to the first vacant colours in his corps.” In June 1751, the Royal Bank re-issued all its 1750 edition. 20 shilling bank notes.

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The Edinburgh Hostels for Women Students: the thread about their wartime role as Internment Camps for “Enemy Aliens”

This thread was originally written and published in January 2023.

An intriguing image was tweeted today, with the caption “WWII Prisoner of War Camp, Scotland, November 1939“:

Note, this tweet has been re-inserted as an image, as under current ownership, “Twitter” has completely and deliberately broken embedding and cooperation with other social media platforms such as WordPress.

Where was this camp? The soldier is very obviously equipped by the British Army, but the building doesn’t look very Scottish, does it? In fact it looks more like a French chateau. Is it a school, a hospital wing or a sanatorium? I didn’t know, so I shared the picture and quickly the answer came back (thanks Sean McPartlin, Graeme Dickson and Ian “Silverback”). It is the Suffolk Road Halls of Residence or to give them their proper name, the Edinburgh Hostels for Women Students. These were used as an internment camp for “enemy aliens” at the start of the war.

Carlyle Hostel in 2001

A 20 acre site in Newington, which had formed part of the the Craigmillar Golf Course, was purchased in 1913 for £10,000 by the Edinburgh Association for the Provision of Hostels for Women Students for a purpose-built accommodation hostel – or halls of residence. The Association was a joint venture between the Edinburgh Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers, Edinburgh University, the Edinburgh College of Art, the Edinburgh Merchant Company and the Edinburgh Episcopal Training College. The hostels were “for the more satisfactory housing of women students” and were intended to eventually have a capacity for 350, with 250 reserved for teaching students at Moray House College. There already existed two small halls of residence for women medical students, converted from houses, on George Square.

Each hostel had a common room, library and dining room and 52 separate study bedrooms. They were grouped around a quadrangle which had a hockey field and tennis courts. The architect was Alan Keith Robinson. This was the first large commission for Robinson and his partner Thomas Aikman Swan, but would be his last. Both volunteered to fight in WW1 and Robinson refused a commission so that he could fight “in the line”. He was severely wounded and was invalided out of the army in 1917. He attempted to restart his practice and partnership but his wounds prevented him properly realising this and he died from them in May 1925.

Carlyle (l) and Darroch (r) Hostels

The first three hostels (Buchanan, Balfour and Playfair) were opened in June 1917 by Sir J. Alfred Ewing, Principal of the University at a cost of with £79,000; £44,000 from the Treasury and the bulk of the remainder from the Carnegie Trust. The running costs were to be met entirely by fees, in 1917 this was an annual £30 (about £2,600 in 2023).

The glory of the Scottish Universities is that they are open not simply to the rich but to those of very moderate means indeed. In Scotland we have always been proud of the fact that we have to cultivate the Muses on a little oatmeal, and even at the present price of oatmeal a Scottish University Education is cheap! There will, I feel sure, be a great satisfaction to all that a comparatively new side in university life will be developed in Scotland, namely the communal life; true education is not simply a matter of listening to lectures and studying books.

Opening speech by Sir Alfred Ewing

Two further hostels – Carlyle and Darroch – were added in 1928 to Robinson’s original designs by Frank Wood, at a cost of £60,000, adding 120 additional bedrooms.

So how did the hostels end up in the photo at the top of this page, fenced off behind barbed wire and with armed guards in watch towers? A brief notice in the Edinburgh Evening News of 30th October 1939 states that the hostels had been “taken over for national purposes.” But the “prisoners of war” in the picture are not servicemen, they are interned civilians. Most were sailors who had been caught in – or en route to – British ports, or in service on ships of Allied-aligned nations at the outbreak of war. Others were simply people of German birth who had been resident in Scotland but now found themselves to be undesirables; “enemy aliens“.

One of the latter category was Adolf Theurer, an hotel chef at the North British Hotel in Edinburgh who “hated the war, and hated the Nazis, but was a German.” Theurer, 61, had lived in Scotland for 44 years and had been at the NB for 37, but had never become naturalised – with war approaching he felt his poor health and good record as a citizen would stand in his favour. He had been interned during WW1 for 4 and a half years and had declared to his family that we would “rather be put against a wall and shot than be interned again“.

Adolf Theurer, picture in the Sunday Post

However, when he appeared at the “Aliens Tribunal” on October 12th 1939 they found against him and interned him at East Suffolk Road. Those subject to appearance at the tribunal were allowed no legal representation, but Theurer’s manager at the hotel had attended and spoke in his favour. He never saw his family again, and died 5 days later, “broken hearted”, from a heart attack. His family, at 16 Claremont Crescent, were only informed after his death and had not been allowed the opportunity to visit him during his final illness.

Theurer’s “Male Enemy Alien” index card, with the word “Dead” coldly printed in block capitals. © Crown Copyright Images reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives

Theurer had been an active member of the German Congregation of Edinburgh, which had been forced to disband during WW1, and had assisted in the sale of its chapel to the Brethren after the war, an order in which he was also active. His wife – Johanna Becker – was also German (although her mother was Aberdonian and she was born in London) and they had three children in Edinburgh; George Adolf, Christina and William. His family were not allowed to take possession of his body, instead it was kept in the police mortuary. He was tragically unlucky; at this early stage of the war, relatively few Germans had been incarcerated. In May 1940 the Minister of Home Security, Sir John Anderson, informed the House of Commons that of 73,535 “aliens” in the country, only 569 – less than 1% – had been interned. There was an outcry of public sympathy for him and his funeral at Piershill Cemetery was well attended. John Mcgovern, the Independent Labour Party MP for Glasgow Shettleston raised a question in the House of Commons about the circumstances surrounding his death. Anderson replied that a “report would be prepared“.

This was not even the end of the Theurers’ travails however; on Friday 10th May 1940, two detectives knocked on the door of the Theurer house in Edinburgh while the family were eating a meal and requested that Johanna Theurer pack a case and follow them. Despite her protest, she was taken to Saughton Prison and sent into internment too. Her younger son, William, was a promising footballer who played with Blackpool and in Edinburgh, St. Bernards and later Hibs. He was a British citizen and was exempted from war service as a conscientious objector, telling his tribunal “I am not a member of any church, but my father was a member of the Plymouth Brethren. The horrors of war have been brought to my own door by his death“. He accompanied his mother to the prison gates.

William Theurer

William’s younger brother, George Adolf, went on to become a successful wigmaker in Edinburgh after the war. He was usually known as Adolf, one wonders if this was a direct tribute to his late father given the connotations such a name would have had at the time. He became a local politician, town councillor for Broughton Ward for the Progressives, 1959-74, senior Baillie and Deputy Lord Provost of the city and, after political reorganisation, Lothian Regional Councillor 1974-82.

An observation about the photo was made (by Adam Brown of the Scottish Military Research Group) that some of the men were dressed rather like sailors; zooming in we can definitely see men dressed in what look like peaked caps, sweaters and trousers tucked into sea boots! Contemporary newspaper reports confirm that all inmates were required to sew a circle of contrasting coloured cloth on to their outer garments and that most of the 100 kept at East Suffolk Road at this point were merchant seamen – unsurprising given the trade between the Port of Leith and the Baltic.

Prisoners at East Suffolk Road, November 1939

On November 18th, three men escaped from the camp, described as “a bow-legged boy of 15 and two others aged 17” The 15-year old was Rudi Platta and the other two were Walther Bartels and Gunther Berger. They were merchant seaman and had managed to steal khaki uniforms – including caps and boots – from off-duty guards while they slept, climb through a window, climb the barbed wire fence and a 10 foot high wall to escape under cover of darkness. Without money, with no English spoken amongst the three and with no real idea where they were going, their chances were not high. They were found 10 hours later walking along the road to Peebles some 20 miles away after a motorist who had passed them heard of their escape on returning home.

Further embarrassment was caused to the authorities (and further sensation was reported in the papers) just 3 days later when two men escaped on the night of 21st November. The pair – George Sluzalek (24) and Franz Feltens (22) were in their civilian attire and again had no money or food, little English, and no plan of where they were going. They became lost, thinking they were heading for the sea but actually they were moving inland. They resorted to eating turnips from a field that had been left out for wintering sheep and were later found nearby, cold and wet, hiding in a yew tree near Dalkeith by an alert gamekeeper.

A detective returns Sluzalek and Feltens (one in his sailor’s pea coat) to Police Headquarters in Edinburgh. Photograph from the Courier and Advertiser, November 22nd 1939

A second pair of men – Eber Hord Rolf Fischer, aged 23, and Max Waderphul, aged 38 – also escaped that night, parting company with Sluzalek and Feltens after their breakout. Again they had little idea where they were and had no resources with them, but managed to make an impressive distance on foot. Around 430PM the following day they knocked on a cottage door to the south of Edinburgh to beg for tea in broken English. Although they aroused the suspicion of the householder, she showed them kindness and welcomed them in to her house and made them a small meal of bread and butter, cheese and cold mutton, telling reporters “I never saw anyone so grateful in my life“. They left after 15 minutes and she phoned the police; the men had disappeared by the time they arrived. They were on the run for 36 hours and a man hunt of hundreds of police and soldiers combed the Lothians looking for them. They were recaptured cold, wet, hungry and exhausted by the search parties near Heriot, some 22 miles south of Edinburgh and seemed glad to have been found.

Remarkably, a further three men almost escaped on the 21st but were spotted by a sentry who fired his rifle in their direction, raising the alarm. They were quickly captured by the camp defence unit. Some of the escapees were allowed to answer questions by press. when asked if they “had anything to complain about of the treatment they were receiving at the camp, one of them said emphatically, ‘No‘”. All of the men were reluctant to be drawn into answering questions about the quality and availability of food in Germany vs. Britain.

The Corporation of Edinburgh was deeply unhappy about the location and security of the camp, and at a meeting on the 23rd November it was resolved to make a formal request to relocate it out of the city boundary; Lord Provost Steele was able to tell the assembled councillors that he had already been given notification of the intention to move it. On Monday 4th November, the Aberdeen Evening Express announced that a “motley company” of almost 200 German men had left Edinburgh at Waverley station from “an internment camp on the south of the city – the camp which has been so much in the news recently because of escape bids.” The prisoners were reported to be in good spirits and waved and smiled to morning commuters. Some conversation was made between men who could speak English and railway employees, and cigarettes were shared with the captives.On Tuesday 5th, the Daily Record reported that in total 300 German internment prisoners had left Scotland for England “for the duration of the war”.

On 28th December, the Edinburgh Evening News reported that the camp would now be formally closed, with transit accommodation for processing prisoners “for no more than 48 hours” having been arranged at an unspecified hospital. The East Suffolk Road Hostels were turned over to the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) officer cadets; the women’s branch of the British Army.

ATS Officer Cadets at East Suffolk Road Hostels, 1941. © IWM H 11075

The requisition had caused something of a crisis for University Accommodation, which also saw 200 cadets billeted in its other accommodation. As a result most students who kept up their studies in wartime had to stay “in digs”, with the Scotsman reporting they were now sharing 3 and 4 to a single bedroom. The hostels were quickly returned to civilian use post-war, with adverts being taken out in the local newspapers for new wardens in August 1945. Later, they became the Newington Campus of Moray House Teacher Training College, closing in 1997 when this institution merged with the University of Edinburgh. They have since been converted into private housing.

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Death by “surfeit of figs”: the thread about the King’s Botanist and a bungling attempt to capture Edinburgh Castle

Today’s 18th century historical thread starts with a chance photo of a gravestone in South Leith Kirkyard, taken because of the touching eulogy on it. Who was Isabella? And who was Colonel Lawson? I thought I would try my hand at finding out, not realising the remarkable yarn that would be spun from this search, largely because a few errors on the stone which made me dig deeper than I probably otherwise would have in trying to resolve them.

To the Memory of ISABELLA, Widow of Robert Cormack, Merchant of Leith and Only Daughter of Colonel Laswson Who fell in the Royal Cause at the Battle of Preston 1715…
She exchanged this Life for a better, August 1783, Aged 82.
Abraham Davellie Cormack Lawson [her son]

I started my search with Isabella. Isabella Lawson (1700-1783) was the daughter of Janet Wilson and James Lawson of Cairnmuir. The Cairnmuirs were minor Borders gentry, their seat was Cairnmuir House – also known as Baddinsgill – near West Linton.

My eye had been caught at first by the eulogy. Someone else’s was caught by the phrase “Battle of Preston 1715” and whether “in the Royal Cause” meant they were on the side of the House of Stuart or that of Hanover; after all, both were Royal Causes. So I tried to find that out too out. I eventually found that our Lawson was in Colonel Preston’s Regiment of Foot later known as the 26th and better known as The Cameronians and that he was actually of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The Cameronians were an unusual regiment which could trace their descent directly from the Covenanting (Scottish Presbyterian) movement. They were formed by the Convention of Estates (a sister institution to the Scottish parliament) in 1689 to defend the Presbyterian settlement in the country as a result of the “Glorious Revolution” from Stuart attempts to impose Episcopalianism. As such they were explicitly anti-Jacobite and had proved loyal to the Houses of Orange and later Hanover. It was The Cameronians who, at the Battle of Dunkeld, had put down the Jacobite rebellion of 1689 and as such we can be sure that Lt. Col. Lawson fought on the side of the Hanoverians at Preston.

Cameronian soldiers in the uniform of 1713

This is where we get to the errors on the gravestone. Firstly, and as far as I can verify, Lt. Col. Lawson did not die at Preston at all. The regimental history acknowledges he was in action at the battle and was badly wounded, but his death is actually recorded 3 years later in 1718. Whether that was from injuries which he had sustained we cannot be sure, and this may have been the case as The Cameronians took a lot of punishment. Secondly, Isabella Lawson was not his only daughter! She may be the only daughter of his wife Janet Wilson, but the Lt. Col. has at least 6 other children by another wife – Marion Reoch. The chronology of births is confusing as to which were by Marion and which by Janet. But I think we can forgive the errors here as the stone, by its own admission, was erected by Isabella’s son – Abraham Davellie Cormack (isn’t that a wonderful name?) – some 70 years after the facts and details may have gotten lost in family stories.

This is all interesting enough in its own right, but on digging around the family tree to try and resolve these questions it brings up Lt. Col. Lawson’s older brother; John Lawson of Cairnmuir, Esq. (1657-1704). It’s not John who is so interesting, it is his wife, Barbara Clerk (1679-1734). Barbara is the daughter of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik and her brother is Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (better known as “Baron Clerk” to differentiate him from his father). The Clerks are one of the most powerful and influential families in the early 18th c. Scottish establishment. Baron Clerk is the Whig’s Whig, a strong supporter of the Union of Scotland and England, a Commissioner for the Union of Parliaments, a Whig MP in the first parliament of Great Britain and later Baron of the Exchequer for Scotland.

Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, (Baron Clerk) by William Aikman

Barbara’s first husband, John Lawson, was therefore a fitting match. From the correct class of Lowland gentry like herself, with the correct political leanings and a brother-in-law in the service of one the Government’s most loyal regiments. But when John dies in 1704, it is Barbara’s second husband where things begin to get really interesting. On the 21 February 1710, Barbara marries one William Arthur* , M.D. (* = no relation, as far as I can tell!) William was born in Elie in Fife in 1680, his father was Patrick Arthur of Ballone, a surgeon, apothecary and Commissioner of Supply for Fifeshire. The Commissioners of Supply were local bodies in Scotland responsible for certain aspects of civic administration. William’s mother is Margaret Sharp, a relative of the recently assassinated episcopalian Archbishop Sharp of St. Andrews. So, on paper, William also comes from the right sort of family for a union with a Clerk. In 1701 or therabouts, William travelled to Utrecht to study medicine under Herman Boerhaave, “the father of physiology“. This was about the best place he could of gone to study medicine in Europe at the time, so clearly the Arthur’s had high aspirations for their son and the means to pursue them.

Herman Boerhaave

William returned to Scotland in 1707 as Dr. Arthur and began to practice medicine with his father in Fife. It is probably through chance that he treated Baron Clerk – who was on a hunting trip in Fife – and becomes acquainted with the latter’s widowed sister, Barbara. The match was obviously approved and as a result the aspiring Doctor finds himself ingratiated into one of the best-connected families in the land. This begins to pay dividends for his career and in 1713 he was licensed to practice medicine in Edinburgh by being invited to join the Royal College of Physicians. He was made fellow by 1714. Dr. Arthur finds himself rubbing shoulders with – and treating – the great and the good of Edinburgh society. All is going well in the Arthur-Clerk household and it’s about to get even better, albeit briefly.

Fountain Close in Edinburgh in 1853, little changed from Dr. Arthur’s day more than a century earlier when the Royal College of Physicians was based here

In 1714 the ailing Queen Anne dies and in her place comes His Most Serene Highness George Louis, Archbannerbearer of the Holy Roman Empire and Prince-Elector, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg; King George I to you and me. One of the new King’s more unusual initial duties is to choose a Regius (Royal) Keeper for the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, as that was a direct household appointment of the Monarch, and became vacant at the point of Queen Anne’s death. The garden at this time located in the Nor’ Loch valley, where Waverley Station is today.

Edgar’s Town Plan of 1765, showing the Physick Garden – note the hed of the Nor’ Loch to the left of themap, to the left of the block designated “S” (which was the first pier under construction of the new North Bridge). Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The incumbent keeper since 1676 is James Sutherland, re-appointed by Queen Anne in 1699 and holder of the Chair of Botany at the university. It would therefore seem sensible that the capable, experienced, renowned and well thought of Sutherland would be re-appointed. But no, it’s not what you know but who you know. For reasons that we can only assume to be Baron Clerk’s influence, William Arthur – whose knowledge of botany would have extended only to a physician’s herbs – finds himself not just the Regius Keeper of the Botanic Garden but also the King’s Botanist, by royal appointment.

A catalogue of the plant collection at the Physick Garden, published by James Sutherland © Royal Collection Trust

To paraphrase Bayley Balfour, biographer of the Regius Keepers, Dr. Arthur probably knew nothing about botany and certainly made little to no contribution to it or to the garden in his charge during his tenure. However he hardly had a chance to, as we are about to find out.

It is now 1715, and all is not well in the land and not everyone is that thrilled with the new king. Long story short, on 27th August that year John Erskine, Earl of Mar, took it upon himself to raise the Jacobite Standard for the exiled Pretender” James Francis Edward Stuart at Braemar and with 600 men called the Jacobite loyal to arms. Up until this point, Mar had been in the service of the Government and his nickname is “Bobbing John” on account of his reputation for dithering and it never being clear quite which side he is actually on at any given time.

Raising the Jacobite standard at Braemar. From “Cassell’s History of England”, 1906

Mar’s forces swell to 20,000 and quickly take control of much of Scotland north of the Forth. Much of Bobbing John’s early success may have been at the hands of subordinates taking initiative. But sites are now set on Edinburgh and its Castle. Within the Castle are government arms enough for 10,000 men and £100,000 that was paid to Scotland upon the Union with England. This plan may have been the instigation of James Drummond (later 2nd Duke of Perth); a Stuart loyalist who had been with James II when he lost his chance of the crown in Ireland.

James Drummond, 2nd Duke of Perth, in 1700 by Sir John Baptiste de Medina. Note the slave boy in the painting, who wears a locked collar and a uniform jacket, denoting him as the property and servant of the Duke.

Edinburgh Castle would be a tough nut to crack. It’s easiest to bypass it entirely and leave it isolated and relatively impotent up on its rock – but when you want what is in it that is not an option. It had been demonstrated that it could be reduced by siege and force as the English did in the Lang Seige of 1573, but the Jacobites had neither the men, resources, time or artillery for that.

“Scene from the Lang Siege” from the Hollinshead Chronicle. Edinburgh Castle on its rock is entirely surrounded by a besieging English army and its Scottish protestant allies.”

No, the best and easiest way to take it was by sneak or subterfuge. Thomas Randolph had done this for Robert the Bruce. Alexander Leslie had done it for the Covenanters. Who was going to do it for King James VIII of Scotland and III of England? Step forward, for reasons known only to himself, Dr. William Arthur, Regius Keeper of the Botanic Garden and King’s Botanist.

What follows is my interpretation of events – I know others exist and you can read them elsewhere.

It is reputed that the Arthurs may have been Jacobites – after all his mother was a relative of an important episcopalian archbishop – but that may be hearsay. Whatever the reason he got involved, William at least had the perfect cover; he was married into an unimpeachable family, was in an intimate position in the depths of the pro-Hanoverian Scottish establishment and was a personal appointee of the King.

Dr. William has a brother, Major Thomas Arthur of the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards (the Royal Scots to you and me). The brothers have a cousin (or he may be a younger brother), Lieutenant James Arthur in the Edinburgh Regiment of Foot (The King’s Own Scottish Borderers to you and me). The Arthurs got to work on a plan to take the castle by derring-do, in which the Doctor’s role seems to have been one of coordinator and fixer. Arms were to be assembled, 30 muskets with bayonets and a “great many” small arms. These were cached in the house in the Potterrow of Sir David Murray of Stanhope by his wife. Recruits were found within the Jacobite sympathisers in the city; from dispossessed Jacobite officers, lawyers, clerks, apprentices and “other youths of a class considerably above the mere vulgar“. We will come back to these latter young men later.

Lt. James promised 30 loyal, armed grenadiers from within the Edinburgh Regiment, they were just awaiting the word. Major Thomas sounds out potential sympathisers and collaborators within the castle itself. Eventually three men, a Sergeant and two Privates, are trustworthy enough to be bribed to assist. From the Duke of Perth are sent 50 loyal men of the Highlands, to be led by Alexander Drummond of Bahaldie – “a gentleman of great courage“. Drummond’s real name is Alexander Macgregor, and he is chieftain of Clan Gregor, whose name is forfeit. The last piece of the arrangements is Charles Forbes. On the face of things a down-on-his-luck local merchant, but apparently actually a Jacobite agent. Forbes is engaged to build foldable assault ladders and to have them ready for a surprise, night-time assault on the Castle walls. Things quickly begin to go wrong however; Major Thomas’ wife got word of her husband’s dealings out of him and she is able to forewarn Sir Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, the Lord Justice-Clerk and 2nd most powerful man in the Scottish legal system, of the threat. Ormiston, inexplicably, ignored the warning and so the Arthurs might still have been in with the element of surprise.

Adam Cockburn (1656-1735), Lord Ormiston. By William Aikman. Cc-by-SA National Galleries Scotland

But remember those Jacobite youths of the “class considerably above the mere vulgar“?. Well they got bored with waiting around for the word and they went and got drunk in a tavern. While they were “powdering their perriwigs in preparation” they give the game loudly away to anyone with ears. Word was again sent to Adam Cockburn of Ormiston. This time he decided to do something about it and a messenger is sent to the Castle where, eventually, the deputy governor is roused. Sceptical, he gives instructions to double the guard and goes back to his bed. Yet again, the Arthurs might still be in luck. At 11 o’clock at night, on what was probably the 9th or 10th of September 1715, the raiding party assembled in the kirkyard of the West Kirk (now known as St. Cuthbert’s), below the sheer face of the Castle Rock.

The West Kirk in the 18th century, from Old & New Edinburgh by James Grant

Their target was the Castle on top of said rock, towering overhead. And up they went, picking their way in the dark of night up the treacherous paths scraped into the cliff face. Perhaps luck was on their side, as miraculously they made it to the top and the foot of the walls on schedule and without issue.

Edinburgh Castle towering above St. Cuthbert’s Graveyard. James Skene 1818, © Edinburgh City Libraries

At the arranged time and place, they were able to make contact with the bribed Sergeant, on duty on the battlements above.But that is where the luck ran out and two problems now manifested themselves. Firstly, the Sergeant is due to be imminently relieved early as a result of the Governor changing the pattern of the guards on account of Ormiston’s warning. Secondly, Charles Forbes and his ladders are nowhere to be seen. The party have only a single rope ladder and grapnel among them. Pressed by time and circumstances, and the ever-more desperate Sergeant up above, the leader of the Highlanders – Drummond of Bahaldie – took control of matters. He threw up the rope ladder and convinces the Sergeant to make it fast and drop it back down; alas, it proves to be at least a fathom too short.

And then the Sergeant’s relief arrived and the game was up! Trying to save his own skin, he called out “enemy!” and fired his musket into the darkness. But the rope, which could only have been affixed to the walls by himself, gave his treachery away and he was quickly apprehended. An illustration made to celebrate the Hanoverians’ eventual victory in the 1715 rising describes the moment that the rumbled Jacobites fled in all directions.

“Attempt to Surprise Edinburgh Castle”, a scene from “Sheriffmuir 1715. March of the King’s Forces and cannon to Perth” by Terrason. CC-by-NC, National Galleries Scotland

One of the Jacobite party, an old officer by the name of Maclean, fell on the rocks as he fled and was apprehended. The rest of the Highlanders under Drummond of Bahaldie – with Major Thomas Arthur in company – headed north to rejoin with Mar and apparently didn’t stop until they got to Kinross. Of the local contingent, three of the indiscreet youths scatter one way, finding what they thought were friends coming the other. Only it wasn’t friends but none other than the Town Guard, turned out on the initiative of Adam Ormiston. The others worked their way around the the north bank of the Nor’ Loch, through the area known then as the Barefoot’s Park. Here, they ran into a man heading the other way encumbered under a load of folding ladders… it was the delayed, incompetent or double-crossing Charles Forbes.

The Barefoot’s Park from the Castle in 1750 by Paul Sandby, with the corner of its walls on the left. The is looking north, with the partially drained swamp of the Nor’ Loch in the valley below. The Jacobites would have fled around this area. The line of walls is the Lang Dykes, an old roadway approximately on the line of Princes Street.

Dr. William Arthur was not part of the raiding party, but eventually decided to go to the Castle Rock for himself at some point that night to find out what had become of the assault. He found only a discarded musket and the Town Guard and Castle Garrison in a state of frenetic activity. He fled to try to find some of the other conspirators, eventually crossing their path. On finding out that all was lost, he saddled his horse and fled south from the city with the others. William will later recount in a letter later, sent on his deathbed to the Earl of Mar, that he didn’t stop until he got to Polton in Midlothian and the house of a niece. Here he and a number of the gentlemen conspirators with him got provisions and fresh horses, before striking out over the Pentlands.

Back in Edinburgh, the luckless Sergeant was thrown in the brig, court-martialled, found guilty and duly hanged. The Deputy Governor of the Castle, who had gone back to bed, was relieved of his duties and imprisoned for a time. In the cold light of morning, William Arthur’s brother-in-law, Baron Clerk – accompanied by Adam Ormiston and others – came knocking at his door to enquire where he might be. The lady of the house, his sister Barbara, was none the wiser. William by this time has made it over the Pentlands to the house of his aunt’s wife. He has travelled faster than the news, so his relation has no cause to suspect him and again he is given refuge. He wrote off a quick letter to Barbara in Edinburgh and stayed long enough to receive an answer that informs him that his part in the conspiracy is known and he is a wanted man. He once again gets fresh horses and flees. Now, do you remember the Lawsons of Cairnsmuir from the gravestone, the Laird of which was his wife’s first husband? Well, as part of the settlement after his death she had come into possession of various parts of his estate. As husband of the mistress, William will be welcome there so long as he can ride faster than the news travels, so makes his way south and back across the Pentlands, and is able to acquire, supplies, money and – once again – fresh horses. And once again, he flees; so long as he keeps moving away from Edinburgh he might just be able to escape.

William would later claim to Mar that he fled into the Borders as he thought he might be “of service” to the cause there. Indeed, there was a failed attempt by a Jacobite party under Mackintosh of Borlum to organise rebellion in this area and he may have made contact with it. But whatever his intentions, Jacobite sympathisers in Teviotdale saw him smuggled over the border to somewhere in Northumberland – although from his letter it may have been that he didn’t actually know where we was! He now disappears for a while. The authorities back in Edinburgh claim that he and a cousin, William Barnes, had met up again with Mar to provide him with intelligence and had been present at the Battle of Preston in October 1715 where the Jacobites would surrender and the doomed rebellion would fail.

The Jacobites surrender to General Wills at Preston, © Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston

This takes us full circle and back rather neatly to where we started, as who else was at Preston (on the victorious side) but that name on the gravestone, Lt. Col. James Lawson of Cairnsmuir; brother-in-law to William Arthur’s wife through her first marriage. The Jacobite Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, would land in Scotland at Peterhead all too late in December 1715, and would be back on his way to exile at the start of February the following year. In his wake would follow various other Jacobite gentlemen and officers; including William Arthur would next surface in Rome a few months later in 1716.

The Pretender and his companions flee Scotland in 1716, a scene from “Sheriffmuir 1715. March of the King’s Forces and cannon to Perth” by Terrason. CC-by-NC, National Galleries Scotland

Here, he set about writing a lengthy letter to the Earl of Mar – himself exiled in Paris – as to why he had failed in his task and why it wasn’t his fault. It is while drafting these excuses, that William consumed a “surfeit of figs”, caught dysentery and died as a result. Perhaps a slightly ironic way for a King’s Botanist to go out; but William was a botanist only in name and thanks only to the patronage of a King he had quickly betrayed. From his death bed, he passed his letter to a Jacobite agent, Dr. Roger Kenyon, who conveys it and news of Wiliam’s death to Mar in Paris. Arthur was clearly popular in Rome as sympathisers organised an elaborate funeral with special permission given by Filippo Gaultieri, Cardinal-Protector for Scotland, according him as a protestant the rare privilege of being buried within the walls of that city. This would become the Cimitero dei Protestant – Protestant Cemetery.

Filippo Gaultieri, Cardinal-Protector for Scotland

And that wasn’t even the end of the silliness of the Jacobites in their attempts to take Edinburgh, because they soon tried again! (And one again, Major Thomas Arthur was involved and once again the attempt failed due to incompetence). So if you liked this story, you’ll definitely like the The thread about Brigadier Mackintosh of Borlum; the Jacobite uprising of 1715 in Edinburgh and Leith; and the wacky tale of its military incompetence.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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The thread about Leith Fort and why it was soon abandoned as a defensive position

Historic Environment Scotland released a very nice 3D model of a 19th century gun from Fort George mounted on a “traversing frame“.

Screengrab of the 3D model, follow this link to see it for yourself.

In case you didn’t know, there was also once an artillery fort in Leith – Leith Battery or Redoubt (but for simplicity’s sake we shall call it the Fort) – and most of its guns were mounted in this manner. The animation shows a 32pdr weapon and Leith originally had smaller 24pdrs (pdr, or pounder, was the weight of the shot in pounds, the method by which such artillery was classified).

The Fort had been built in something of a panic commencing in 1780, after Leith and Edinburgh had been threatened by the squadron of the American John Paul Jones in 1779 during the War of Independence. A temporary battery of cannon was placed in North Leith to cover the entrance to the Port of Leith from seaborne assault; the tidal nature of the harbour meant any ship intent on entry had to navigate a relatively narrow and defined channel. When the dust from the John Paul Jones panic had settled it was decided to formalise this battery into a permanent defensive fortification. It was somewhat unusual in origin in that it was largely paid for and constructed by not the military but by the City of Edinburgh and the town of Leith. It was further unusual in that its architect was the mason James Craig – better known for his plan of Edinburgh’s New Town – who was not a military engineer. Captain Andrew Frazer, the Army’s Chief Engineer for Scotland who had designed and superintended the construction of Fort George, therefore oversaw the practical details. The Board of Ordnance completed the construction and fitting out of the Fort after it was handed over to them by the Town Council only completed up to the level of the first storey. It took until 1793 until everything was finalised and it was formally occupied by the Royal Artillery.

I have read more than once than the Fort was something of a folly, incapable of fulfilling its intended purpose of defending the Port of Leith. But if you plot the fields of fire of its artillery you get a good idea of how advantageously sited it actually was; the intensity of the red shading shows how many guns can be trained to fire at that particular point. The effective range of the 24pdr weapons was just shy of 1,000 metres; any ship making an attack on the port therefore had to transit a considerable distance under the overlapping fire of the Fort‘s guns. A newspaper report of artillery practice in 1840 confirmed the guns were capable of firing on practice targets located at 200 to 1,200 yards distant with some degree of accuracy.

A map for the Inspector General of Fortifications showing Edinburgh and Leith, made c. 1780-90 by an unknown cartographer. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

A contemporary account notes;

The Battery will effectually command the range from one mile to one mile and a half of the road for shipping and the entry to the harbour

John Smith’s Houses and Streets of Edinburgh

An original survey of the fort made by the Board of Ordnance in 1785 gives details of its planned artillery. The principal battery, annotated at a and b were the eight 24pdr cannons; those at b were on traversing frames, those at a on wheeled carriages. The traversing frame offered the advantage that the gun could be rapidly trained to aim at the target, the wheel carriage was quite cumbersome and required block and tackle to shift its aim. If you follow the link to this Youtube video, it shows such a 24pdr cannon on a traversing frame being loaded, aimed and fired by re-enactors at Old Fort Henry in Ontario, Canada. Notice it takes the best part of 3.5 minutes to complete the loading and firing drill although regular gunners in the 18th and 19th century would have probably had this down nearer to a minute.

Plan of Leith Fort, Board of Ordnance, 1785. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

At c was a colossal 13 inch mortar: that distance being the diameter of the bore, not the length of the weapon! The mortar was a terrifying weapon, more suited to siege work and with a very slow rate of fire thanks to its huge 195lb (90kg) explosive bombs. But even a near miss from one of these would have made it very difficult for any small boats caught in the blast, or for ships trying to anchor outside the port or come alongside its piers. In addition it could fire a special “ball light” shot to help illuminating the scene for night actions. You can read a full information leaflet about the 13 inch mortar here.

In addition to all this firepower there was a trainable 18pdr weapon to protect the seaward entrance and a single 68pdr Carronade mounted at the lower level. The Carronade was for point-blank use against ships trying to force their way into the Port of Leith. It was a compact but very powerful weapon intended to cause extreme damage at shorter ranges. It took its name from its inventors, the Carron Company, a pioneering Scottish ironworks which was further up the River Forth, near Falkirk. Coincidentally they had a foundry in Leith at this time.

A 68 pounder Carronade on the ship HMS Victory. CC-by-SA 3.0 Bjenks

To protect the Fort from naval gunfire it had two broad parapet walls, faced and backed with masonry. The inner parapet, of the battery itself (at B on the diagram) was further protected with a ditch, through which ran a fence.

Section of Leith Fort, Board of Ordnance, 1785. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Protection from the ravages of the waters and storms of the Firth of Forth – which had reduced the seaward walls and bastions of Cromwell’s nearby 1655 Citadel to rubble in a matter of years – came from a sea wall was constructed in front in 1785. To reinforce this and to secure it against direct assault by small boats, 3 rows of large wooden posts were driven into it.

The road to Newhaven, infront of the fort, the sea wall and the rows of posts on the shore. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The rest of the Fort‘s defences all pointed landward, with loopholes along the walls and corner bastions to provide enfilading fire (i.e. they can shoot lengthways along the face of a wall, to prevent any attackers from taking refuge up against it from the defenders above). As well as its 100 gunners, there was accommodation for a squad of 12 defending soldiers and their sergeant. It was not designed or intended to resist a siege, this was purely self defence to prevent it being overwhelmed before regular forces from Edinburgh could come to its relief.

Landward defences of Leith Fort. Note the characteristic “arrowhead” shape of the defensive corner bastions. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

There is a single contemporary image of the Fort that I am aware of, a sketch made in 1784 looking from the west towards Leith. In it we can see the grass-covered battery wall, with the notches cut in it for firing the guns through, the flag pole, and some of the accommodation buildings to the right.

Leith Fort, 1784, from the Hutton Drawings. CC-by-4.0 National Library of Scotland

Helpfully, it confirms that the Fort was actually armed, one of the 24 pounders can be seen poking through its loophole.

Leith Fort, 1784, from the Hutton Drawings. CC-by-4.0 National Library of Scotland

In 1805 and 1806, it is recorded that Leith had five 24pdrs and four, later siz, 18pdrs. The 24pdrs were still there, on more modern carriages, around 1843 when David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson took some calotype photographs of some of the weapons and men of the Fort. A newspaper report in the Caledonian Mercury of April 1847 noted the strength at Leith Fort was seven 24pdrs, four 18pdrs and a 10 inch mortar.

Major Crawford, Major Wright, Captain St. George and Captain Bortringham of the Leith Fort Artillery. Hill & Adamson, CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

An 1860s newspaper illustration shows the City of Edinburgh Artillery Volunteers practising at the Fort, but their weapons look to be rather larger than the 24pdrs and on more substantial carriages than the iron ones shown in Hill and Adamson’s photos. It was reported that in February 1860 that three 32pdr and three 64pdr cannon were delivered to Leith from Woolwich; judging by the scale the weapons below are the 64pdrs. The Volunteers were raised in 1859 on the back of an invasion scare, and there was much enthusiasm to join; 9 batteries were formed in Edinburgh and Leith alone. Their role was to man the home defences in times of invasion and to provide mobile support to the regulars, using agricultural horses to haul their weaponry to where it was required.

The Artillery Volunteers drilling at Leith Fort

A side-effect of the invasion scare was that the military stockpiled immense quantities of gunpowder and ammunition in both Leith Fort and Edinburgh Castle. Leith found itself being used as the main ordnance store for all of “North Britain”. The Town Councils of Edinburgh and Leith were alarmed to discover in 1865 that there were one hundred and thirty barrels at Leith, each containing 100lbs of black powder. This 130,000lbs amounts to 59 metric tonnes, “sufficient to blow the whole town into the Firth of Forth” as Mr Wishart, a Leith Town Councillor, put it. Official remonstrations to the government resulted in Blackness Castle, further up the Forth, being converted into a central gunpowder store for Scotland and by 1870 the stockpiles had a much safer new home, away from the centres of population and industry.

Hill & Adamson’s pictures also show a number of small, horse-drawn field artillery pieces. These would have been suitable for rapid deployment to firing positions outwith the Fort in the event of action.

Unknown Offcer and three mounted soldiers of the Leith Fort Artillery, 1843. Hill & Adamson. CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland.

Between 1795 and 1815, there are thirteen recorded substantial repair and improvement works at Leith, including making provision for it to hold French prisoners during the Napoleonic wars. However the Fort‘s life as an artillery battery was cut short. When the new wet docks began to be constructed in Leith along Commercial Street in 1801 by John Rennie they blocked the field of fire of the Fort and rendered it “useless as a work of defence“. These docks would take some 16 years to complete and ended in a government bail-out of the near-bankrupt Edinburgh Town Council, requiring that the latter cede land to the Naval Board who moved the Leith Naval Yard from Constitution Street to a more advantageous position directly below the Fort.

John Thomson’s Plan of Leith, 1827, showing the wet docks and Naval Yard built in front of it. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

New defensive bastions were constructed on the sea wall of the wet docks, where cannons could be mounted in times of threat. The outer approaches of the harbour were to be defended by a Martello Tower, work on which commenced in 1809. Left also to the City of Edinburgh to finance and construct, it took them a whole 29 years before they handed it over to the military; unfinished! The Fort was ultimately re-purposed as an artillery depot, as a barracks and as a muster and training depot for artillery volunteers. By the end of the 19th century, the weaponry allocated to the Fort was a mixed bag of older weapons for drill purposes. It continued to serve as an artillery depot right up until the 1950s and its final occupants, the Royal Army Pay Corps, paraded out in 1956 and the location was locked up and abandoned.

The gates locked and Leith Fort abandoned in 1957. Notice the “bollards” at the gate which appear to be a pair of old cannon set in the road surface, and the decorative piles of cannonballs on the gate piers. Most of the structures within are Victorian or later, the pair of guardhouses are Georgian. Contemporary newspaper photograph from the Sphere

It was afterwards re-purchased by the City of Edinburgh and it formed a core part of the Leith Fort Comprehensive Redevelopment Area, its inner buildings apart from a pair of guard houses were demolished and an infamous housing scheme was constructed within it’s tall, oppressive walls.

Leith Fort housing scheme in 2008, CC-by-SA 3.0 Jonathan Oldenbuck

This scheme, which had all the ambience and aesthetic of a prison (and in later life, most of the social ills of one), was demolished in 2013 and a much more pleasant housing development replaced it, with the Fort’s oppressive walls much reduced in height. Somewhat appropriately, the new streets within are called Guardhouse Parade, Cannon Wynd and John Paul Jones View.

Leith Fort in 2022, looking through the old entrance way on North Fort Street, past the guardhouse to the new council housing.

For a comprehensive paper with detailed research on the Fort and the Napoleonic defences of the Forth, you can download The Fixed Defences of the Forth in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1779-1815 by Gordon Barclay and Ron Morris from the Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal. This has proved an invaluable source for me on some of the details of how Leith Fort was actually used and equipped.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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The thread about a surprise capture of Edinburgh Castle; when Alexander Leslie was not hoist by his own petard

This thread was originally written and published in March 2020. It has been lightly edited and corrected as applicable for this post.

In March 1639, Lord General Alexander Leslie captured Edinburgh Castle for the Covenanters by having one of his entourage sneakily apply a petard to the castle gates under cover of his appeal to the governor for its surrender. According to the Scottish military historian David Caldwell, this “has to be one of the most remarkable and easy captures of a major fortress in the history of warfare“.

Illustration of a petard from “Sketchbook on military art, including geometry, fortifications, artillery, mechanics, and pyrotechnics”

A petard was a bucket or bell-shaped device that was filled with explosives and held against a wall or gate before being exploded, it channelled the explosive force towards the target and as such was a very early form of “shaped charge” weapon. The word Pétard comes from the Middle French péter, to break wind, on the basis of the noise made by the weapon’s detonation. It has entered the popular lexicon from the works of Shakespeare, the phrase “Hoist with his own petard” coming from Hamlet, and means to fall into your own trap or foiled by your own plans, as the petard was often as deadly to those using it as to the intended target.

When war broke out in 1639 between King Charles I and the Covenanting Party in Scotland – The First War of the Bishops – the King had tried to hand the governorship of the castle to Patrick Ruthven, a prominent Royalist soldier. Like many senior Scottish soldiers he had learned his craft in the service of Gustav Adolphus of Sweden during the 30 years war. Ruthven was renowned for his drinking abilities – Gustav Adolphus had used him as a emissary on account of him being able to drink the opposition under the table and still retain his faculties – but sensibly refused the job on account of the poor defensive preparations of the castle. Ruthven also declined Charles’ offer of overall command of the Royalist forces in Scotland as he was not granted absolute authority over them. Instead the castle was held by its long term constable, Archibald Haldane.

Patrick Ruthven, Lord of Ettrick

Leading the Covenanting Army was Lord General Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, an immensely capable and respected general. Ironically he had formerly served under Ruthven in the Swedish Army and had risen to Field Marshall in that service, but now back home found himself on the opposing side.

Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven

Leslie arrived at Edinburgh castle with fellow former servants of the army of Sweden; the similarly capable Alexander “Dear Sandy” Hamilton – General of Artillery – and Robert Monro – General Major. They brought with them 1,000 locally-raised hagbutters (musketeers). Ostensibly they were there to either appeal to the garrison to surrender or to overawe them with their force. But they had a third plan in case either of these two failed; the petard.

Edinburgh Castle had been unsuccessfully attacked by the English under Hertford in 1544 when the towns of Edinburgh and Leith were burned. When Hertford, now the Duke of Somerset, returned in 1547 this time he didn’t even bother it. During the Siege of Leith, which lasted from 1548 – 1560, the Castle was held by the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and her Scottish Catholic and French supporters and was largely unaffected. War came again to the Castle in 1573 when a combined English and Scottish protestant force besieged it in the “Lang Siege” which brought the turbulence of the “Marian” civil wars to something of a close but also reduced much of the Castle and its defences to rubble.

Edinburgh Castle under siege, 1573, a woodcut from Holinshed’s Chronicles of 1577.

Gordon of Rothiemay’s remarkable bird’s eye plan of 1647 shows the castle as it would have been in 1639, largely rebuilt since being reduced in 1573. It’s not so recognisable to us after all the Georgian and Victorian additions to the castle, but the obvious features of the royal apartments (a), St. Margaret’s Chapel (b) are there.

Edinburgh Castle from Gordon of Rothiemay’s map of Edinburgh, 1647. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Defensively, the “Spur” (magenta) is the first line of defence. Built and financed by the French supporters of Mary of Guise in the 1550s and 1560s, it was a modern artillery fortification on the bastion style and protected the castle gates from direct frontal assault and had been rebuilt. The “Half Moon Battery” (green) was newer – built by Regent Morton after the Lang Siege – but with its rounded form was anachronistic.

The Spur had taken a siege lasting almost 2 years to overcome it; the Covenanters didn’t have anything like that sort of time or besieging resources on their hands, so subterfuge was a much more sensible approach. Leslie, Hamilton and Monro went up to the castle gates “between 4 and 5 in the afternoon” to parley with Haldane. As they withdrew, one of their party attached the petard to the outer gate of the spur and it was fired.

The gate destroyed by the petard. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The outer gate demolished, the Covenanters’ forces rushed the spur in the smoke and confusion and quickly set about the 2 inner gates of the castle “with axes, hammers and ramming-leddirs” while others poured over the walls on scaling ladders.

The route of the assault, rushing the pair of inner gates. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The garrison were caught totally off guard and unprepared and seemingly no attempt at resistance was made. Within an hour, the castle was in Covenanter hands without loss on either side. We can only surmise how the Covenanters managed to fix and fire the petard without any of the defenders trying to stop them. Perhaps the defenders gave those renowned generals outside the gates too much deference and wouldn’t suspect that they might try any such trick. Given this amounted to the physical opening shot of The First Bishop’s War, everything up until this point being political manoeuvring, the defenders could be forgiven for not expecting an assault.

Or perhaps they didn’t even know what a petard was and what to look for. Apparently this was its first use in Scotland for a generation and only the third record of one being used at all. Petards had been banned – on pain of death – by King James VI after their use to blow up the gates of the Lord of Spynie’s house of Kinblethmont in November 1602.

Dunyvaig Castle on Islay, attacked in 1614 with a Petard in CC-BY-SA 2.0 Chris Heaton

Or perhaps they just didn’t underestimated their foes and didn’t respect the skill, determination and masterful planning that usually marked out Alexander Leslie.

Within a year and the conclusion of the First Bishop’s War (in the favour of the Covenanters), the Castle was back in the possession of the King and this time had to be put under proper siege by the Covenanters under Major Hugh Somerville (Leslie was in England with the main body of the Covenanter army) to take it. Defending it this time was Patrick Ruthven, who had made considerable preparations for such an event and was well supplied and garrisoned; there would be no quick trick to take the Castle this time. Ruthven held out for 3 months before a surrender was finally negotiated, both defenders and besiegers being bloodied by the experience. For his troubles, Ruthven was raised by King Charles to Earl of Forth.

Siege of an Unknown Tower, a 17th century illustration by an unknown artist. CC-BY-NC National Galleries Scotland

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

Womanning the Guns: the thread about Edinburgh and Leith’s WW2 aircraft defences

Today’s Auction House Artefact is a German Luftwaffe bombing maps centred on Edinburgh and Leith from WW2. These very maps may have been used in air raids on Edinburgh and Leith during that conflict. They have a deliberate yellow tint to make reading them under the night lighting in an aircraft easier and were printed on plastic-coated fabric to avoid creases and allow the navigator to mark on them in a wax pencil. Water, rivers, roads, railways and forests are all marked as obvious navigation markers. The map dates from 1941 and interestingly all the place names are in English – probably because German maps were basically reprints of captured or purchased British Ordnance Survey maps.

Luftwaffe bombing map of Edinburgh, Lothians and south Fife

Ziele (targets) were marked in yellow in ink that may have been luminescent so that they would appear brightly at night and account for the major docks and shipyards, airfields, military facilities and power stations along the Forth Coast. Below is my best guess at the full list of target sites (excepting the Forth Bridge, which I mistakenly overlooked).

Targets marked on the Edinburgh, Lothian & Forth map

The German Naval Command (OKM) at least bothered itself to translate some of the descriptive words on their charts into German, although again they had simply bought up sets of official and readily available Admiralty charts and reverse engineered them. The below OKM coastal chart was printed in 1938 but was already well out of date – entire interwar districts are missing; Craigentinny, Lochend and Restalrig in the east and Wardie, Granton and East Pilton in the north. The Western General Hospital is marked as Armenhaus, the translation of Poorhouse, which it had ceased to be in 1927. The fact that the railway to Leith Central Station is missing and there is no gasworks marked at Granton suggests the map predates 1900 and so was 38 years out of date at the time of issue!

WW2 German naval chart showing Edinburgh. Note that “armenhaus” (poorhouse) on the left side which dated from copying a much older map before the Craigleith Poorhouse became the Western General Hospital in 1927. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Such maps show that the German military considered Edinburgh and Leith to be targets of interest. The British authorities were more than a little aware of this and were relatively well prepared when war broke out to defend the city from air attack.

The principle defence was provided by the fighter squadrons stationed at the RAF airfields at Turnhouse, to the west of the city, and Drem in East Lothian. These were the first British home air defences to be tested in the war; on 16th October 1939 a Spitfire of 603 Squadron from Turnhouse piloted by Flt. Lt. Gifford shot down a Junkers 88 bomber, one of 12 that had attacked the Royal Navy anchorages in the Forth. This was the first German aircraft of the war brought down over Britain and one of the four crew, Obergefreiter Krämer, was killed in this action. Spitfires from 602 Squadron from Drem under Flight Lt. Pinkerton brought down another bomber off of Crail, with 3 of the 4 crew being killed.

The German bombs begin to fall over the Forth Bridge from The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1939

But it wasn’t just from the skies that the city was defended, it was also protected from the ground by a ring of anti-aircraft gun batteries. This was a far cry from WW1 when Edinburgh and Leith were almost completely undefended when a Zeppelin air raid dropped 44 bombs and left 14 dead. All the anti-aircraft guns in Scotland (and Northern Ireland) were part of a Territorial Army formation called the 3rd Anti Aircraft Division, which was headquartered in Edinburgh.

Formation patch of the 3rd AA Division

There were five gun batteries around the city of Edinburgh plus a decoy site (although the one at Silverknowes may have been a decoy too and the others weren’t always armed depending on the phase of the war). The defences of Edinburgh and Leith benefited from their proximity to the Royal Navy Home Fleet’s base at Rosyth and were a component of a wider network defending the Forth anchorages, with thirteen further batteries along the coast. These defences were manned overall by 36th (Scottish) Anti-Aircraft Brigade, with Edinburgh being covered by the 94th Regiment. As the war progressed the organisational structure changed and due to a shortage of manpower mixed units were introduced by incorporating women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) into the gun batteries.

Edinburgh Anti-Aircraft Battery designations and locations.

The gun batteries were of a standard design known as HAA sites (Heavy Anti-Aircraft) and the remaining structures of site EDG2 at Alnwickhill can still be clearly seen in aerial photography (and from the ground), underneath the equestrian paraphernalia from its modern-day use as a horse farm. The gun battery was composed of four QF (Quick Firing) guns – the pink dots – on concrete plinths with protective walls of brick and earth. These were arranged in an arc around a control bunker (white arrow). Each gun had ready-to-use ammunition lockers arranged around its inner walls, with more stored in two magazines (orange arrows) nearby. The distinctive circular feature to the north of the battery was a large calibration mattress for the site’s gunnery radar.

Google Earth aerial photography of Alnwickhill battery.

Most such batteries were armed with the QF 3.7-inch gun (the inches refers to the calibre, or diameter of the gun bore) that were sited at these batteries could fire an explosive shell weighing 28lbs (13kg) to an effective height of about 25,000ft (7,600m). They could shoot higher than this, but this was the maximum height to which they were able to accurately track and engage a target and was sufficient to engage all but the highest-flying enemy aircraft at this time. A photograph of one of Edinburgh’s 3.7″ guns is shown below

Gunners and their QF 3.7-inch gun in April 1942. Notice the size of the weapon behind them and the two men holding the large, fixed round. IWM (H 19090)

Each gun could fire 10-20 rounds a minute, depending on how well drilled the crews were and how physically fit they were to man-handle the heavy ammunition for any extended period of firing. The performance of the guns was therefore directly proportional to how fit the crew were and one of the principal responsibilities of battery commanders was to keep the men active. Interestingly the only other wartime photos I can find of the gun batteries around Edinburgh – at West Pilton – show physical training in progress.

Gunners of an anti-aircraft battery at the start of a cross-country run at West Pilton battery. They are being watched by the ATS women. Imperial War Museum IWM (H 30227)

The large protective shields around the guns in the background indicates that this site was actually armed with the less common QF 4.5-inch guns that were based on a Royal Navy design. They fired a heavier projectile (54lb or 24kg) to a greater height but the rate of fire was much reduced as a result, to about 8 rounds per minute.

The ATS women watch the men at Tug-of-War at West Pilton, 30th July 1943. It looks like they are dressed to compete too. Imperial War Museum H 31590

Each gun battery was controlled by a mechanical computer known as a predictor, which would be located at the central building marked with the white arrow on the aerial photo. This box of tricks had various dials into which its operators could dial input parameters about the target and ambient conditions (measured or guessed). The internal electro-mechanical innards of the box would calculate the direction and elevation in which each gun should be pointed and the guns followed its lead; the crews just had to keep on loading them.

The ATS women who “man” the Predictor of an unidentified Edinburgh battery. Two of the guns can be seen in the background, and camouflage netting appears to be strung over their positions. Notice the cable trailing from the arm in the foreground, which transmitted commands computed by the Predictor to the guns. IWM H 19092

The distance to the target and its height was calculated using a device known as a Rangefinder. The static HAA batteries used a huge 18-foot wide Barr & Stroud UB-10 device.

ATS women with their UB-10 rangefinder at an unidentified Edinburgh battery. IWM (H 19093)

Hitting a tiny, fast moving target moving in three dimensions – like an aircraft – with a projectile fired by a gun mounted miles away and tens of thousands of feet below was a tall order: so tall in fact that it was actually fundamentally impossible. As a result the projectiles were not actually expected to hit their target, rather they were to explode in its vicinity, close enough to do damage. Each projectile therefore had a clockwork fuse in its nose which was set to explode when it reached its target, a setting calculated by the Predictor which sent its outputs to another machine called the Fuse Setter. As part of the loading drill, each shell would be placed nose-first into the Setter which automatically adjusted the timer, before the loader shoved the projectile into the breach of the gun. Despite all this mechanical sophistication it was still a monumentally complicated mathematical problem that could be thrown out by tiny variations in the predictor inputs, or the weather, or the ambient conditions, or the target manoeuvring. It was calculated that it would take 41 thousand rounds fired from 3.7″ guns to bring down a single aeroplane! To put this into context, the five batteries of 4 guns around Edinburgh could fire up to 320 rounds per minute at best: if you could keep that up without running out of ammunition, it would take 2.2 hours to bring down an enemy plane – which by then was halfway back home. The role of these guns therefore was less actually shooting aircraft down and more just making sure they flew high enough and took enough avoiding action to make dropping their bombs a far more challenging and less accurate task.

To improve the accuracy of the inputs to the Predictor, the HAA batteries were progressively equipped with Gun-Laying (GL) radar sets which could accurately measure the range to target with an accuracy of about 50 metres. But these early GL radar sets were primitive by even the standards of the day and used a long wavelength which was susceptible to ground interference which caused false returns. To negate this issue the ground around each radar set was “calibrated” using an enormous wire mattress; this is the circular platform visible in the aerial photograph above of Alnwickhill. A 120 metre diameter ring of ground was flattened off, with the radar antennae positioned at its the centre on a raised platform. This area was laid with a 13,000m2 mattress of ½-inch chicken wire mesh, suspended on a wooden frame at a height of 1.5m from the ground. This required 230 rolls of wire mesh, 4 feet wide by 50 yards (1.2x46m) long; 650 miles (1,050 km) of wire per site plus a further 10 miles (16km) in the supports. Such was the scale of and priority given to these calibration mattresses that they consumed the nation’s entire supply of chicken wire at the time!

Gun-laying radar GL Mark II transmitter cabin

The anti-aircraft defences of Edinburgh also included more exotic weaponry; there were two Z-Batteries, reinforcing the regular guns at Craigentinny and West Pilton. These sinister sounding devices were batteries of 64 twin-barelled rocket launchers that fired projectiles which deployed a 500ft long cable suspended by a parachute, with a grenade attached at the other end. The theory was that the launchers would unleash their 128 rockets across the flightpath of an oncoming enemy aircraft which would hopefully snag one or more cables and then draw the dangling grenade towards itself. These were a rather makeshift, emergency weapon to try and make up for a lack of proper weapons and were rarely effective. They did at least create a decent fireworks display to give the public the impression that they were being defended and could be manned by older members of the Home Guard up to an age limit of 60 as the rounds were much lighter than the heavy 3.7″ and 4.5″ gun rounds – the age limit for which was 40. An Edinburgh Evening News report of 25th September 1944 reports that the 101st (City of Edinburgh) Home Guard Ant-Aircraft Rocket Battery at Craigentinny had been on operational service for 820 consecutive nights, i.e. since June 1942 and was the first such battery to become operational in Scotland. At the time of reporting, each of the Edinburgh rocket batteries had fired their weapons in anger once, both on the night of 24th March 1943, and each was credited with the shooting down of an enemy aircraft, which they shared with the regular gun batteries of the city.

Demonstrating one of the twin-rail launchers of a Z-battery to the Scottish press. This demonstration was in suburban Edinburgh and the bungalow housing in the background suggests this may be Craigentinny. Imperial War Museum credit.

For night-time actions there were powerful searchlights to try and identify targets for the guns to fire at – a largely fruitless task. I have so far identified two recorded locations and suggestions of more. The first is a photograph taken in April 1942 which shows a visit to a searchlight position near Hunter’s Tryst, looking towards the Pentland Hill. The visitor is the Rev. Ronnie Selby Wright, formerly minister of the Canongate Kirk and by then senior Padre to the Army’s 52nd (Lowland) Division. He acquired the nickname “Radio Padre” after a series of popular radio broadcasts he made for the BBC.

Rev. Selby Wright chatting to a Search-light detachment at Hunter’s Tryst. Photography by Lt. Lockeyear, 26th April 1942. Imperial War Museum, IWM (H 19086)

I have also found a Home Guard sketch map in the City Libraries collection that shows a portion of the south of the city at Southhouse, with X marking the spot of a searchlight position.

A sketch of Home Guard positions around Burdiehouse in the south of Edinburgh. © Edinburgh City Libraries

Lastly I have in my possession a little book that is an account of the Home Guard activities in this district of the city during the war and it has an illustration of two searchlights being visible from the Braid Hills. This is the earliest days of the war, note the men are still wearing their LDV (Local Defence Volunteers) armbands, lack an official uniform and carry a variety of weapons.

“A Blasted Heath – 02:00”

The last fatal air raid in Edinburgh occurred on 6th August 1942. After that, there was local peace in the skies until the night of 24-25th March 1943 when there were scattered attacks across Fife and the Lothians that saw some incendiary bombs dropped harmlessly on farmland near Balerno beyond the then outskirts of the city. In “This Present Emergency: Edinburgh, the river Forth and south-east Scotland and the Second World War“, Andrew Jeffrey suggests that three German Ju-88 bombers were downed by the defences of Edinburgh during this raid, with one crashing on Hare Hill in the Pentlands and two others ending up in the Forth. Newspaper reporting at the time credits a kill each to both Z-batteries, the 102nd battery at West Pilton sharing theirs with the guns. The online database of wartime Luftwaffe losses records the loss of a plane crashing into Hare Hill outside Balerno killing pilot Fritz Foerster, gunner Willi Euler, observer Heinz Kristall and radio operator Horst Bluhm. This was the aircraft that had jettisoned its bombs in the field shortly beforehand. The other two aircraft losses that night were one that crashed on a hillside in Northumberland while being attacked by an RAF Bristol Beaufighter and another that hit a hillside near Earlston in Peeblesshire.

Through improvements in training, organisation and the technology of radar and predictors, as the war progressed the number of rounds the guns would have to fire to bring down an aircraft was reduced by an order of magnitude, to just 4,100. For Edinburgh’s defences this equated to a much more realistic 10-15 minutes of firing to get a “kill“. The last German aircraft to fly over the city likely did so on May 5th 1944, but by this time the course of the war itself had also progressed and by mid-1944 most of the UK’s heavy anti-aircraft defences, including those around Edinburgh, were redeployed to the south coast of England to counter V-1 flying bombs. The more mobile parts of Scotland’s 3rd Anti-Aircraft Division also went south and were attached to the Allied invasion forces, fighting with them across mainland Europe. By this point further technological advance had brought the number rounds required for a “kill” down by another order of magnitude to about 100.

With their guns removed the anti-aircraft defences of the city were mothballed, but we can clearly see their distinctive ground layouts in post-war aerial photography. Each gun battery is accompanied by rows of huts and buildings to house and support the personnel and all the required stores. These photographs suggest that battery EDG4 at West Pilton was fitted with radar as we can see the large circular footprint of the radar calibration mattress (the photo below of Sighthill is censored, but an uncensored version also shows the outline of the mattress). They also hint that battery EDG5 at Silverknowes was either never finished or was purely a decoy.

EDG3 Battery, SighthillEDG1 Battery, CraigentinnyEDG5 Battery, SilverknowesEDG4 Battery, West PiltonPost war aerial photography showing four of the Edinburgh HAA batteries

Although the sites were out of use by the war’s end they remained military property and a state secret. They are missing from detailed 1:1250 Ordnance Survey town plans made in 1944 and on some versions of the above aerial photos they have been censored; crudely scratched out or in the case of Alnwickhill and Sighthill, more subtly removed.

EDG1 battery, CraigentinnyEDG4 battery, West PiltonEDG2 battery, AlnwickhillPost-war censorship of the AA battery sites

The defences of were officially stood down in 1948 and each site had a different fate after that. Sighthill was soon cleared away and the land returned to civilian use when the new industrial estate was laid out there post-war. The huts and structures of West Pilton were used as a Territorial Army (TA) training centre before being turned over to a rather grim-looking and latterly notorious housing estate. The huts at Craigentinny were also re-used, given over to emergency post-war housing as Craigentinny Camp before being returned to their pre-war use of a golf course. The camp at Alnwickhill was kept on by the army before later being used by Ferrantis at East Pilton for testing military electronics and weapons. One of its uses was for testing Bloodhound anti-aircraft missiles in the 1950s, demonstrated wonderfully by the below photograph showing such a missile pointing towards the distant Arthur’s Seat.

A Bloodhound missile at Alnwickhill pointed directly at Arthur’s Seat. Credit likely BMPG

Along with the well-preserved structures at Alnwickhill, the dummy battery at Hilltown near The Wisp survives largely intact as it was returned to the farmer’s field from where it sprung and left too the odd cow to shelter in. From the air its layout is still unmistakably a very close copy of one of the active batteries.

Modern aerial imagery of the Hilltown dummy battery

Edinburgh and Leith were mercifully spared most of the horrors of aerial bombing meted out to other cities during WW2. Altogether there were 21 civilian deaths and about 210 injuries caused directly by aerial bombing during the war. Further details can be read in the thread about the air raids on Edinburgh and Leith during WW2 and the civilian loss of life they caused.

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Death from above: the thread about the 1916 Zeppelin air raid that terrorised Edinburgh and Leith

It was fittingly dark and late when I started to write this, but here follows the story of the Zeppelin air raid on Edinburgh and Leith of 2-3 April 1916. It’s a long-ish story which I’ll break down into 3 parts. Hopefully as we go I can clarify a few points and add some extra details to other versions of it

Part 1. Prelude

The frightening and fascinating new technology of Zeppelins burst quite literally into the British public consciousness on 19-20 January 1915 when an attack on Great Yarmouth, King’s Lynn and Sheringham left four dead and fifteen injured. Follow up raids are a failure, until bigger and more capable Zeppelins arrive and in April and May 1915 towns across the southeast of England from Ipswich to Dover are targeted and hit. Three are killed and there is public outrage. Public and newspaper ire is directed as much at the authorities for failing to protect the populace and smite the aerial menace as much as at the German military. In September a Zeppelin humiliatingly appears with impunity over London.

“The First Zeppelin Seen from Piccadilly Circus, 8 September 1915”, Andrew Carrick Gow, 1915. IWM Art.5216

By the end of 1915, 203 people have been killed and a further 711 injured in monthly raids over (mainly) the Eastern and South Eastern counties of England. The authorities have been largely impotent in response, but try to mobilise the public outrage as a recruiting tool.

Recruiting poster, 1915. Library of Congress.

British companies also utilise the Zeppelin scare in patriotic advertising. North British Rubber, based in Fountainbridge in Edinburgh and the largest rubber products producer in the British empire, took out adverts in the illustrated papers imploring customers to Buy British as German rubber companies made the fabric for Zeppelins.

“The German Menace”, North British Rubber advert from the Graphic, 30 October 1915

The Daily Mail is amongst popular newspapers which offer its loyal readers a compensation scheme should they or their family be killed or injured by a Zeppelin air raid.

Daily Mail advertisement poster for Zeppelin insurance scheme for its readers. IWM Art.IWM PST 13010

There are public awareness campaigns, warning people what to look out for when scouring the skies for aerial attackers.

Public Information Poster. IWM PST 13660

In early 1916, during a winter lull in the bombing campaign, George Currie MP for the Leith Burghs asked the Scottish Secretary about what was to be done by local authorities to guard against the aerial threat .

George Currie MP in 1914

A week later, the Secretary for Scotland, the Rt. Hon Thomas Mackinnon Wood, issues the “Lighting Order”, which obliges local authorities to implement a basic blackout and put in place warning measures of air raids, but leaves the details to local discretion.

Thomas Mackinnon Wood Esq, MP, Lafayette Negative Archive

A debate rages in Edinburgh Town Council about the best way to enact the order. The Chief Constable wants a complete night-time blackout but is felt to be over-reacting and over-stepping his authority. An audible warning is felt to be unnecessary and might just draw people out onto the street anyway. It is eventually settled that in the event of an air raid, the Corporation Electrical Department will dim the lighting supply as a warning before cutting it entirely as a blackout. However the gas lighting supply (the predominant domestic lighting) will not be dimmed or cut, over fears that it will lead to leaks from unlit lights when the supply is restarted.

This means that there is no warning system in place for people who use gas lighting – the majority – and the blackout will not be effective. However this is accepted. After all, Edinburgh is very far away from it all and probably feels its isolation is protection enough. The burgh of Leith follows suit and issues similar orders, however these do not apply to the shipping sitting in Leith Roads and they continue to burn lights at night.

The raids begin again at the end of January 1916 with the full moon; 57 are killed and 117 injured. There is respite as a result of the weather at the end of February but the Zeppelins return at the end of March. On the night of the 31st, 43 are killed and 66 wounded. But a Zeppelin is shot down during that raid, to public jubilation.

Zeppelin L15 sinking in the Thames Estuary after having been fatally damaged by defensive gunfire.

On the next night (1-2 April), it is the North East of England that is hit, 16 people are killed and 100 are injured. The bombs are creeping northwards, but are still more than 100 miles from Edinburgh

Part 2. The Raid

On the bright spring morning of April 2nd 1916, the residents of Edinburgh open their morning newspapers to read headlines and horrifying details of the latest series of raids. Unknown to them, something sinister is stirring 500 miles to the east.

At the Nordholz naval air base north of Bremerhaven, the Imperial German Navy readies four of the latest P-class Zeppelins for a raid on Rosyth on the Firth of Forth, the base of the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet – the most powerful fighting force on the high seas.

The Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet in the Firth of Forth, aerial photo taken from a British airship late in the war

In the early afternoon, Zeppelins L13 (pictured), L14, L16 and L22 take off and begin their long voyage west. These 163m long, 4-engined craft have a crew of 19, cruise at 39mph, can reach an altitude of 11,600 feett and carry up to 2,000kg of bombs; high explosive and incendiary.

L13

L13 soon develops engine troubles and turns for home. L14, L16 and L22 press on west, but are troubled by a northerly wind that blows them well off course. L16 makes for the secondary objective of Tyneside but drops her bombs 11 miles off target. L22 gets a bit lost and mistakes the river Tweed for the Tyne, bombing fields around Chirnside. She will later claim to have destroyed one of the bridges over the Tyne.

L14 – under the capable command of Lt. Commander Alois Bocker – however is on course and schedule. She passes the Scottish coast near St. Abb’s Head, being spotted here and possibly engaged by Royal Navy destroyers (although they have no practical weapons to really do so). Nevertheless, the alarm is now raised and the Admiralty dispatches the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron from Rosyth on a pre-determined search pattern of the Forth to look for the raider. At East Fortune naval air base, Sub Lt. GA Cox is scrambled in an Avro 504C fighter on an ultimately fruitless interception mission. Cox will be injured later trying to land his rickety aircraft in the dark.

An Avro 504C aircraft, a type with marginal performance specifically rushed into service as an anti-Zeppelin defence.

And in Edinburgh and Leith, the warning message is received by the authorities that an air raid may be imminent, and the electric lights are dimmed and the tramway is stopped. The fire brigade, hospitals and Red Cross are put on alert.

Bocker turns L14 turn back out to sea after passing St. Abbs, using the Isle of May in the outer reaches of the Forth to get their bearings, then flying directly down the middle of the Firth. They appear over Inchkeith around 11:15PM. Over Inchkeith they do what Zeppelin attackers often do; they stop to take their bearings, floating high over the island. The night is clear but there is a low haze and they cannot make out their target from the glazed cabin high above the sea.

The command cabin of L22 after the war, where Bocker and his men would have looked out from over the Forth

Instead, the welcoming lights of the ships in Leith Roads point Bocker towards the docks and L14 sets off again with a new target in mind. Bocker is familiar with the port having visited it as a sailor in peacetime and he knows if he follows its river it will lead him to the city centre of Edinburgh.

The Leith Police spot L14 around 11:25, approaching from Inchkeith. She is flying high, perhaps as high as 10,000ft. The zeppelin (the black track on the below map) is heading southwest, straight towards the heart of Leith.

L14’s approach to Leith over the Sands, towards the Albert Dock

The first three bombs are unleashed here. Bomb 1, a 50kg high explosive (yellow marker), lands in the Edinburgh dock, sinks two rowing boats and destroys the skylight windows of a Danish sailing vessel. The two incendiaries, bombs 2 and 3, land near the Albert Dock but cause no damage beyond a burnt fence which is quickly extinguished.

The first 3 bombs dropped.

Bombs 4 and 5 are High Explosive. They hit a grain warehouse in the Timberbush and the Custom House Quay. Damage is done to property from flying masonry and smashed glass, but it’s largely superficial and nobody is hurt.

Bombs 4 and 5 Land near the Shore.

Bomb 6 is high explosive, it hits the roof of the tenement at 2 Commercial St. and takes L14‘s first victim; 61 year old engineer Robert Love- husband of Ann Porteous and father of James – is killed as he sleeps in his bed in the top floor flat.

Robin Love, contemporary newspaper photo, provenance unknownBomb 6 causes a fatality. Bomb 7 lands nearby.

A few doors down at 14 Commercial Street, bomb 7 – an incendiary – smashes through the roof and then through the floor of the top floor flat before starting a fire in the flat below. The elderly woman who had been sleeping in her bed calmly got up and poured a pan of water in the hole and extinguished it. More bombs rapidly drop. 8, 9 and 10 are incendiaries and land on Sandport Street. A fire is started and rapidly extinguished and no further damage is caused.

Bombs 8, 9 and 10 land in Sandport Street

Bomb 11 is another 50kg HE. It comes down in Innes & Grieve’s whisky bond on Ronaldson’s Wharf and sets the spirit store on fire. The inferno lights up the night sky, making the job of navigating the Zeppelin and aiming the bombs easier. The entire stock, worth £44k (an enormous sum in 1916) is destroyed. It is not insured against aerial attack (this seems to be a recurrent situation at the time, special “air raid insurance” schemes were set up to cover where other insurance would not) . Bomb 12, an incendiary, lands at 15 Church St. and falls through the roof into a room where a mother and 3 children are asleep. The flats are set on fire but the residents have a lucky escape before it is quenched.

Bombs 11 & 12

Bocker now steers L14 along a course following the Water of Leith. A stick of four incendiary bombs is dropped around Mill lane. The St. Thomas Church manse is largely destroyed, but the minister and his family are miraculously unharmed. Clearly he had been saying his prayers as somehow he, his wife and their servant girl asleep in the attic were spared.

St. Thomas’ ManseThe attic room of the manse, note the bomb-shaped hole in the floorDamage caused to St. Thomas’ Manse. © Edinburgh City Libraries

The St. Thomas’ School next door and the Leith Hospital across the street get lucky escapes as bombs 14 and 15 land directly outside. Bomb 16, landing on Hawthorn & Co’s shipyard, sets fire to a fence but it is quickly put out. L14 continues its course along the Water of Leith.

Bombs 13, 14, 15 and 16.

Four HE bombs are dropped over the industrial quarter of Bonnington. Seemingly little damage is done beyond smashed windows, but when the dust settles it is found that little David Robb, just 1 year old and who had been sleeping in his cot has been tragically killed by shrapnel. David’s parents, Robert and Jane, were just getting over the loss of another infant the previous year.

Bombs 17, 18, 19 and 20. Those at 200 Bonnington Road cause a fatality.

The “disconsolate” Robert Robb gave an upsetting interview to a journalist which, unusually for the time, passed the censors.

Robert Robb’s newspaper interview.

L14 had now completed wreaking its terrible toll on Leith. Bocker took his bearings again from the Water of Leith and turned his ship to head south, directly towards the city centre of Edinburgh. It is 11:50PM. an HE bomb, number 21, is dropped, landing on waste ground at the end of Bellevue Terrace. It blows out windows in houses and flats for streets around and demolishes a tin shed, but no further damage is done. Likewise bomb 22, an incendiary, does no damage when it lands on the road surface of The Mound.

L14‘s course takes it just past the Castle atop its promontory. The next bomb, 23, is another 50kg HE (my map has it coloured wrong). It crashes through the roof of the Georgian townhouse at 39 Lauriston Place. The McLaren family are awake inside and hear it descending on them.

Dr Mclaren and his wife and teenage daughter miraculously are unharmed at 39 Lauriston Place, despite the damage. The family reputedly still have a piece of the bomb’s nose cap. The Skins – the Edinburgh Special School for children with ringworm – next door is also damaged.

The damage caused to 39 Lauriston Place. The house was demolished in the early 1970s

This bomb claims a victim though. David Robertson, a 27 year old soldier invalided out of the Royal Field Artillery, is outside in an adjacent street to see what is going on and is hit in the stomach by flying shrapnel, later succumbing to his injuries.

David Robertson. Contemporary newspaper image, via Newbattle at War.

Bomb 24 is high explosive. It lands in the playground of George Watson’s College school and causes extensive damage to classrooms. It is perilously close to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh next door. Bomb 25 is an incendiary and lands near Jawbone Walk on the Meadows without causing damage.

Bombs 24 – 26 near The Meadows

L14 continues south over the Meadows before making a turn to east, dropping bomb 26 – another 50kg HE – as it does so. This comes down in the tenement at 82 Marchmont Crescent. It fails to properly explode but its kinetic energy carries it through floors and ceilings to the ground floor flat at no. 80. It is this bomb that is now on display at the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune.

Bomb 26, now on display at the Museum of Flight. © Self

Meandering east across the Southside, incendiaries are dropped (bombs 27 and 29) at Hatton and Blacket Places, landing in gardens and doing no damage. An HE bomb comes down at 183 Causewayside and “practically wrecked” the tenement. Six are injured, four of whom are hospitalised. One of the injured, 71 year old Wilhelminha Henderson, will succumb to her injuries in the following days and dies in hospital of a heart attack brought on by the shock.

Bombs 27 – 29 dropped across the Southside

L14 now makes a U-turn back towards the city. This time it passes directly over the Royal Infirmary, dropping an incendiary (bomb 30) as it does so. This comes down on a roof but fails to do any damage.

This is the incendiary on the roof of the RIE. This was a conical-shaped bomb with a central fuse. Inside the cone was a mix of oil and kerosene, on the outside it was wrapped in tar-soaked rope. It was not particularly effective and would be replaced by fearsome Thermite weapons towards the end of the war.

The bomb on the roof of the RIE

There are multiple eye-witness reports of seeing “blue lights” dropping from the Zeppelin. What people were seeing was the long streamers on the incendiary bomb’s tail, which were meant to stabilise it, catching the light as it fell. One of these incendiaries from the night is also on display at East Fortune.

Incendiary bomb at the Museum of Flight. The top portion fitted over the lower one, this weapon has been disassembled to show its construction. © SelfBomb 31.

L14 is now on a heading directly for the Castle. Another HE bomb – number 31 – is dropped, coming down in the Grassmarket outside the White Hart Hotel and Gothenburg tavern. Four men gathered in the area are injured and more damage is done to buildings. One of the injured, a 45 year Corporation Porter by the name of William Breakey, will die shortly afterwards from his injuries having been struck on the chest by flying debris

William Breakey. Contemporary newspaper image, via Newbattle at War.

Most of the windows in the area were blown out. Buildings took the scars of flying debris. Given how usually busy and how densely overpopulated the neighbourhood was, it was remarkable that the death and injury toll here was not much higher.

Crowds gather in the Grassmarket the next day to inspect the damage. Note that all the windows are blown out.Animated transition showing the damage caused in the Grassmarket against the street today

L14 was perhaps aiming for the Castle, as bomb 31 at the Grassmarket and 32 and 33 – which fall immediately after – are in a straight line across it. Bomb 32 hits the southwest face of the Castle Rock. The Castle gunners impotently fire two blank rounds from the One O’Clock Gun in response. At the County Hotel on Lothian Road number 33 falls, an HE bomb, and there is another miraculous escape. The bomb explodes in the hotel roof causing extensive damage, but casualties are limited to a woman resident in a bedroom below suffering slight injuries .

Bombs 32 and 33 dropped as L14 flies over the Castle

Having missed the castle, L14 continues on its course before picking up its navigational maker of the Water of Leith again. Again a 180° turn is made, again bombs are unleashed as it does so. What Bocker is aiming for is anyone’s guess. Perhaps railways, perhaps the prominently large building of Donaldson’s Hospital. But all 3 bombs land in the river and although countless windows are blown out – including Donaldson’s chapel stained glass – there are no injuries.

Bombs 34-36 are dropped as L14 U-turns over Coltbridge

L14s new course takes it back directly over the Castle agai but this time no bombs are dropped; not until it is well past it at least. Bomb 37, a high explosive, comes down outside the tenement at 16 Marshall Street off Nicolson Square.

L14 is almost retracing its steps, the Castle is crossed 3 times. Bomb 37 falls well beyond it.

This will be the most deadly bomb. Residents had gathered in the passageway of the building, probably up and about due to the excitement of it all and taking shelter within as the drone of the Zeppelin’s engines approached again. The 50kg bomb strikes the pavement outside, the blast is driven into the stair of No. 16 and kills six men and boys standing within instantly. It injures a further seven.

The victims are William Smith 15, his father John Smith 41, Henry Rumble 17, David Graham 5, William Ewing 23 and Victor MacFarlane. The injured include the brother and son of the deceased Smiths and the father of Henry Rumble. Private Thomas Donoghue, 24, of the 3/4 Royal Scots who was home on leave was also injured. He had been visiting family. He would succumb to serious injuries to the abdomen and is the 7th fatality from Marshall Street.

Animated transition image showing the damage caused to No. 16 Marshall Street against the building today

The bomb at Marshall Street fell at about 00:25AM, fully an hour after L14 was first spotted approaching Leith. And still it droned on over the city, at complete liberty to undertake its terrible deeds. As it continues on its course, two more HE bombs are dropped. 38 lands in the tenement at Haddon’s Court and 39 comes down in the tenement at 69 St. Leonard’s Hill. Each of these bombs will claim a victim.

Bombs 38 and 39

At Haddon’s Court, James Farquhar, a 73 year old mason, will die 5 days later from his injuries in hospital. At St. Leonard’s Hill, 4 year old Cora Edmond Bell is killed in her bed.

L14‘s course takes it over the south western edge of the King’s Park. Here the City finally fights back, soldiers have been dispatched to the Salisbury Crags (where there was a military rifle range) and engage the Zeppelin with a Lewis and a Vickers machine gun. L14 drops four of its last five bombs, an incendiary and three HEs. It is perhaps aiming for the railway yard at St. Leonard’s, or the flashes of gunfire far below, but no damage is done beyond to some walls and the gunners have no chance of hitting the Zeppelin anyway at its altitude.

Bombs 40-43 fall in the King’s Park

The last bomb, number 44, falls further south in the grounds of Prestonfield House at around 00:40AM (times in the records vary and conflict slightly). L14 now turns east around the south of Arthur’s Seat and strikes a course for home.

In the approximate hour and 15 minutes when it was over Edinburgh and Leith, it dropped 44 bombs, caused 14 fatalities and 24 injuries. No targets of any military value had been hit, a whisky bond and a manse had been destroyed, and countless thousands of window panes smashed.

Part 3. The Aftermath

It took until April 4th, the day after the morning after the raid, for the events in Edinburgh and Leith to hit the papers. Reporting censorship restrictions kept things vague and just referred to “south east Scottish counties” and “an eastern coastal town” .

The Scotsman praised the public response “the raid… naturally caused some excitement, but failed to produce any panic or do otherwise than steel the hearts of the people against the nation capable of using such barbarous methods of warfare against the civilian population“.

The first 3 Funerals took place on the afternoon of April 5th. A further 4 Funerals took place on the 6th. Municipal representatives were present and there “were numerous manifestations of public sympathy as the cortège passed.” It was announced that the National Relief Fund had made “provisional arrangements” to give grants to local committees for the purchase of furniture for displaced persons. It was anticipated that applications would be made to the fund for indirect losses, e.g. loss of lodgers.

The lack of accurate reporting meant rumours and gossip was rife. The word on the street in Dundee was that the Scott Monument had been destroyed. Visitors from there to family in Edinburgh asked if they could please go and see the ruins? Unable to report the facts, the Scotsman settled for odd editorials, for instance extolling the virtues of traditional Scottish construction over suspect English ways.

Scottish stone proved more resisting than English bricks; instead of the crumbling ruins of houses… the only evidence of the raid on the tough fabric of Scottish buildings was shattered windows and indentations on the walls. This first raid on the costs of Scotland has been a great triumph for the Scottish builder.

Scotsman editorial opinion after the raid

And there was an even weirder one on how the general lack of public panic was some sort of proof evident of the racial and genetic purity of the people of Edinburgh and Leith.

The Lord Provost, who was in London on council business, met with John French, 1st Earl of Ypres and Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Forces to “explain to him the position of matters in connection with the raid“. French was reportedly “quite sympathetic.” Sympathies were sent from war-torn France.

French sympathy with Scottish sufferers

And in the letters columns, recriminations were quick to come. Multiple organisations of the city worthies and self appointed committees of dignitaries wrote their opinions about what must be done. All that could be agreed was that something must be done. Given the woeful state of the anti-aircraft defences in the country, Mr Ralph Richardson wrote to suggest that local authorities must be empowered to raise their own air forces, as they did fire services “to defend the lives and property of the lieges committed to their care“. There was also the question of the warning and blackouts. It was ordered that the gas supply would be cut along with the electricity in the event of a raid. Stricter blackout conditions were made, to be “drastically enforced” due to the “slackness in various parts of the city”

The Army provided a rudimentary anti-aircraft battery on Corstorphine Hill. Manned by artillery volunteers the gun was a QF 13pdr 6cwt Mk.I. This was a “marginally effective” weapon, and indeed was a cast off. Only 20 had been made before replaced by something better. This had likely been sent to Scotland as a token gesture to show that the military authorities were doing something, anything, in response. The battery was provided with a searchlight and an acoustic direction finder, which was meant to help locate the direction from which a Zeppelin was approaching from the noise of its engines (it didn’t really work).

13 pounder AA gun on Corstorphine HillSound locator device and searchlight on Corstorphine Hill.

These defences were more morale-boosting “security theatre” than anything effective. However subsequent “War Weapons Week” campaigns encouraged the public in Edinburgh to directly finance better anti aircraft weapons to guard against the Zeppelin threat.

Scottish War Weapons Week poster. IWM PST 10244

The proximity of the bombs to Edinburgh castle worried the governor, who wrote to the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland to inform him that the Regalia of Scotland had been moved for safekeeping from the Crown Room to the Castle vaults.

Letter from the Governor of Edinburgh Castle to the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland in Whitehall NRS HH31/21/1 fol.19

At least two babies born just before or after the raid were named in its honour;

• Catherine O’May Campbell Raida Smith was born 2nd April to Janet Smith at 49 Montague Street
• Raida Alexandra Douglas was born May 21st to Barbara Mackay Douglas of 88 Nicholson Street

Raida Smith’s father, Peter, made an appeal against conscription on account of his wife “remaining ill… she did not make a good recovery and has been nervous and sleepless since… A strain that at present she is ill able to bear“. I don’t know if he was successful.

The L14 would become the most successful German Zeppelin of the War. It made 17 attacks on Britain and dropped 22 tonnes of bombs. Alois Bocker was shot down commanding L33 in September 1916 over London. He survived, was captured and reportedly treated well as a Prisoner of War.

Alois Bocker

In 2016 on the centenary of the attack, Edinburgh University Library published a fascinating first hand account of the aftermath, from the diaries of schoolboy Archibald Campbell who had roamed the city the day after taking notes of his impressions.

https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/untoldstories/2016/03/30/i-100th-anniversary-of-zeppelin-air-attack-on-edinburgh-a-school-student-walks-among-the-wreckage/

Points to Clarify

There are many good accounts of this story, however there are various points and facts which have inevitably become confused or corrupted (with honest intention) over time. I will try to clear up those that I have identified.

Firstly, only one Zeppelin, L14, bombed Edinburgh and Leith. L22 never made it and erroneous reports of it being over the city persist. German and British official records all agree that only L14 was within 100 miles of Edinburgh that night. L14 was much higher – 10,000ft – than you might think. It was dark and unlit, many people heard it, very few saw anything. As it flitted between pockets of cloud and light and went back and forth over the city it would be easy to think that you had seen or heard 2.

Secondly, there are no photos of L14 over the city. There are photos that purport to be it, but this is of the civilian airliner Graf Zeppelin over the city in 1930. There are other mockups too. But they are just that. The illustration below from the “Illustrated London News” shows what people *might* have seen in the night sky had they been able to get a view of L14 – but it qould have required a good set of binoculars or a telescope. It is an older, smaller model of Zeppelin though.

“Illustrated London News,” September 18th 1915

The third point concerns the number of bombs and fatalities.

• 20 bombs were dropped in Leith and 24 in Edinburgh, Leith was a separate burgh at this time and some accounts overlook this nuance and thus get the total wrong.
• 14 people lost their lives in total; some reports miss out some of those who died of their injuries up to 5 days later, they are listed in the table below

Name and AgeLocationName and AgeLocationRobert Love, 61Commercial Street, LeithDavid Robb, 1Bonnington Road, LeithDavid Robertson, 27Graham StreetWilliam Breakey, 45GrassmarketWilliam Smith, 15Marshall StreetJohn Smith, 41Marshall StreetHenry Rumble 17Marshall StreetDavid Graham 5Marshall StreetVictor MacFarlaneMarshall StreetWilliam Ewing 23Marshall StreetPvt. Thomas DonoghueMarshall StreetWilhelmina Henderson, 71CausewaysideJames Farquhar, 73Haddon’s CourtCora Edmond Bell, 4St. Leonard’s HillTable of fatalities

As far as I’m aware, there are 3 public memorials to the air raid.

• A flagstone on the Grassmarket where William Breakey was fatally wounded.
• a piece of damaged masonry from the old Grassmarket Corn Exchange, now removed to the back of the Apex Hotel car park (see picture below)
• A plaque on the Castle Rock, near where the bomb fell there. There is a picture on this site;

Plaque and damaged stone from the Grassmarket Corn Exchange, now in the car park behind the Apex Hotel. With Permission of Al Fraser.

The events of this night were commemorated back in 2016 but still don’t really pervade the local public consciousness, at least not to the extent of the attacks made during WW2.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

The thread about the history of Jock’s Lodge; just who was “Jock”?

It’s a Friday, so let’s start the day with an animated image transition to visualise a bit of local history. The view below shows Jock’s Lodge toll house in the mid-late 19th century, looking east down the Portobello Road at the junction with Willowbrae.

#NowAndThen transition of old Jock’s Lodge, looking east.

The original image here is from Old & New Edinburgh by James Grant, which was published 1885. The toll house is in the middle of the image, you can see the barriers, one on each side of the cottage opened against its walls and another on the left side of the road.

Jock’s Lodge toll house from Old & New Edinburgh by James Grant

Other features we can see are what was the Jock’s Lodge Tavern (for now, The Willow), with a cavalryman from Piershill Barracks standing outside. The belfry behind belongs to the barracks’ chapel.

A cavalry trooper stands outside the Jock’s Lodge Tavern, with the belfry of the barracks chapel behind him.

Another cavalryman is in the foreground, the pillbox undress hats of the troopers suggest a date of 1870s or thereabouts. Behind him is the row of taverns and villas at Piershill that grew up around the barracks, and where many of the officers and their families would have lived. In the distance is a stagecoach.

A cavalryman on the Portobello Road, with a row of buildings beyond.

And on the right of the scene we can see a haycart approaching from the direction of Duddingston, a reminder that this part of Edinburgh was thoroughly rural and not even with the city’s administrative limits until the very end of the 19th century.

Haycart in front of a thatched byre. This is coming from the road to Duddingston, now known as Willowbrae

The 1876 OS Town Plan matches this view more or less exactly. The rounded western gable of the toll house, sitting in the middle of the road junction, the buildings beyond, the Jock’s Lodge public house on the left, the barracks and its chapel on the right.

1876 OS Town Plan. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

There had long been a village here at it was about the only settlement of note on the King’s Highway between Edinburgh and Musselburgh. It was conveniently located at a road junction, where alternative routes east via either Easter Duddingston or the Figgate whins met a road to Restalrig Village. This village seems to have included in the 18th century stables, taverns, lodging houses and a brewery, exactly what you’d expect on a Georgian transport route. The area was long the haunt of highwaymen, one of the earliest recorded incidents being in 1692.

William Roy’s Lowland Map of Scotland, showing Jock’s Lodge on the route from Edinburgh (the red area on the left of the frame) to Musselburgh and on to Berwick. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

As for the toponymy – the meaning of the place name – Jock’s Lodge is mentioned back in the 1650s in Nicoll’s Diary as Jokis Ludge. Oliver Cromwell mustered the New Model Army infantry here in July 1650 before his failed assault on Leith. Other forms of the name were always plural; Joks, Jokes, Jocks and Jock’s. So who was Jock? Well Jock wasn’t one person, Jock was a whole lodge of persons. Specifically, the Jockies.

The Jockies were also known as King’s Bedesmen or Bluegowns; they were a class of Royally-appointed beggars, first licensed to beg by King James VI. They had a uniform of a licence badge and blue gown. Every birthday of the monarch each Bluegown received a new cloak, a tin badge with the motto “pass and repass“, a Scots shilling for every year of the monarch’s age and their dinner. David Allan, who painted lots of the city’s lower classes at work, has an illustration of a late 18th century Bluegown wearing his badge, begging at one of the city ports, the steeple of St. Giles’ in the background. Clearly an old soldier, he has lost a leg – possibly why he was accorded the “privilege” of his station.

David Allan, 1785ish, A Peg-Legged Beggar, with Donkey and Children, Asking a Lady for Alms Outside One of the City Gates

“Pass and repass” on the beggar’s badge referred to the holder being allowed to pass freely through the land, not being subject to local begging laws or charges of vagrancy.

1847 Bluegown’s badge, issued in the reign of Victoria. CC-BY-SA 3.0 Roy Oaks

The Bluegowns referred to themselves as Jockies and reputedly had a lodge house outside the city; the Jockies Lodge. I do not know of any further details or images of what this house may have looked like, or where exactly it was, but this 1818 sketch is the earliest view identified as being Jock’s Lodge that I could find.

Cottage at Jock’s Lodge, by Daniel Somerville, c. 1818. © Edinburgh City Libraries

A photo in the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club (vol. 23) shows the back of the toll house and a now-demolished villa beyond, which may have been the site of the Jockies Lodge. This house in turn was cleared away to widen the road to Restalrig, also known as Smokey Brae, in the 1930s.

Jock’s Lodge “as it used to be” an old photo, 1860s-80s of the lodge house and a villa beyond.

A thread about Jock’s Lodge cannot fail to mention Piershill (and indeed, already has!). Suffice to say that in 1794 a big cavalry barracks was built immediately to the east on the site of a house called Piershill. This illustration below was made in 1798 and it is almost certain that the prominent central block of the barracks, the officers’ mess and accommodation, was an extension of the original Piershill House.

Late 18th century illustration of Piershill Barracks, looking towards the Forth. From collection at Blickling Hall © National Trust/ Tania Adams

The origin of Piershill as a placename is lost to time, but it’s probably descriptive, something to do with willow trees, and nothing to do with a man named Piers or Pierre. The name is much older than the house which adopted it in the 1760s.

Piershill Barracks in 1894. The Officer’s Mess in the centre is likely partly comprised of the original Piershill House. © Edinburgh City Libraries

The barracks were demolished in the 1930s and replaced with two large U-shaped circuses of show-piece council housing by the City Architect, Ebenezer James Macrae. Much of the masonry from the barracks was re-cut and used in the façade dressing and as boundary walls of these houses. Macrae was a big fan of traditional Scottish building style and techniques and was not alone in Scottish City Architects of his time in persisting in the old ways, in the face of modernity, for a variety of reasons including job creation and the fact many of the tried and tested features performed their functions well in their native climate.

Piershill Housing, Edinburgh, John Harper Campbell, 1951. © Edinburgh City Libraries

If you wander down Smokey Brae towards Marionville Fire Station and Restalrig, you can still find the old back gate of the barracks.

Smokie Brae, former back gate and perimeter wall of Piershill BarracksSmokie Brae, former back gate and perimeter wall of Piershill Barracks“BACK GATE”“BACK GATE”

As if there was any doubt that this was from the Piershill barracks, if you look at an old photo of the main gate, the legend is a perfect match:

The main gate to Piershill Barracks © Edinburgh City Libraries

You can see this gate on old maps. The railway cut through the northern part of the barracks site in the 1840s, so rather than leave some of it marooned on the wrong side of the tracks, the North British Railway bought a parcel of land to the east of the barracks and transferred it to the government, to where the barracks’ riding school, stabling, grazing ground and hospital were relocated. In turn it kept the exclave to the north and built itself a gasworks here.

1849 OS Town Plan, showing the back gate of Piershill Barracks, with a slope up to the main parade ground level. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

Battles, treachery, murder, witchcraft and execution: the thread about the dark and bloody history of the Quarryholes

This thread was originally written and published in September 2022.

The “things I’d like to write a thread about” intray can get pretty overcrowded so it brings me more than a little bit pleasure to say that it’s only taken me 7 months to get around to my promise of following up on writing about the Quarryholes. This is not one but actually two distinct places, the Upper or Over Quarryholes (blue on the map below) and the Nether or Lower Quarryholes (red below). You can see the tailburn of the loch at Lochend cutting between the two.

Roy’s 1750s Lowland Map of Scotland showing Upper (blue) and Lower (red) Quarryholes. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

As the name suggests, the Quarryholes were areas where quarrying had once taken place and left behind pits in the ground and a hamlet grew up at both of the locations.

The Quarry by William Strang, 1893. This is not a bad approximation of what the Upper Quarryholes might have looked like in the 18th century before the New Town expanded onto the Calton Hill.

In 1554 the Querrell Hollis feature in David Lindsay’s “Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits” as a location where a horse is drowned; the quarry pits had long been flooded and were dark and dangerous bodies of water. The distinct Ovir Querrelholis is recorded in 1588. Quarrel was the Scots for quarrying but obviously in modern use means a squabble or disagreement and that is quite apt given the subsequent history. In the early 17th century, the charter of both of the Quarryholes was in the possession of William Rutherford of Quarryholes, the son of an Edinburgh Burgess and merchant, one Bailie William Rutherford. William junior was a merchant and shipowner in Leith who in 1612 was in trouble for cutting off a man’s finger and in 1617 was back before the Privy Council for illegally exporting tallow and cheese.

A son of William junior, also William, sold the Quarryholes to the City of Edinburgh in 1634, and they in turn passed them on to Heriot’s Hospital (Upper Quarryholes) and the Trinity College & Hospital (Lower Quarryholes). Another Rutherford son, Andrew, was born at Quarryholes in the early 17th century and would rise to become the Lieutenant-General of the Garde Écossaise, the bodyguards to the French Crown, and a favourite of King Louis XIV of France.

Two soldiers of the Garde Écossaise. CC-by-SA 4.0 Count of Zielin

On his return to Scotland, Andrew was made the Lord of Teviot by King Charles II and given a regiment to command. Later he was Governor of Dunkirk and arranged its sale to the French on behalf of the King. He died on active service in 1664 as Governor of Tangier, one year after becoming Earl of Teviot.

The Battle of Tangier, 4 May 1664. A Morrocan force under Khadir Ghailan ambushes the Tangier Regiment under Andrew Rutherford, killing ~470 including Rutherford, who died trying to rally his men.

But links with military violence and the Quarryholes were not just in far off Morocco. In July 1559 the Lords of the Congregation, the Scottish protestant nobility fired up by John Knox, who had been energetically “reforming” Churches in Stirling and Linlithgow now moved on to Edinburgh. At the Quarryholes they parlayed with supporters of Queen Regent Mary of Guise to agree a temporary mutual toleration, avert further conflict and avoid the potential for full blown urban warfare in the city.

A meeting of soldiers. An excerpt of the woodcut of the 1573 “Lang Siege” of Edinburgh Castle from the Hollinshead Chronicles – a very good representation of Scottish and English military forces in the mid-late 16th century.

Mary of Guise died the following year but things didn’t get much more peaceful as a result in Scotland; or at the Quarryholes. On 16th June 1571, during the ensuing Marian Civil War, “Drury’s Peace” took place at the Quarryholes – which proved to be anything but peaceful. “Black Saturday” as it was also known occurred when pro-Mary Queen of Scots forces under the Earl of Huntly rode out from Edinburgh Castle to confront pro-King James VI forces from Leith under the Earl of Morton and his enormous hat.

There was ample bad blood between Morton and Huntly and their heavily armed parties were spoiling for a fight. To try and negotiate between them, emissaries were sent to meet at the Quarryholes under the mediation of Sir William Drury, the English Ambassador . Drury (of Drury Lane, the Strand) proposed terms which both parties seemed to accept, but neither side could agree which would turn and leave the field first. Eventually he got them to agree that they would leave at the same time when he threw up his hat. The emissaries returned to their own lines and Drury duly threw up his hat.

The Queen’s men under Huntly duly turned and left as had been agreed but the King’s men under Morton treacherously did not and charged at their opponents retreating towards the Canongate and ran them down. They were “pursued with cruel and rancorous slaughter to the very gates of the city. The whole road was covered with dead and wounded“. Lord Home, several other gentlemen, 72 soldiers, colours, horses and two cannon were marched into Leith by a triumphant but treacherous Morton. Back in Edinburgh, the citizenry suspected that Drury had betrayed the Queen’s forces and he had to be protected from the city’s notorious mob.

“A skirmish outside Leith”, led by a gentleman in a very tall hat. From “British Battles on Land and Sea” by James Grant

The Quarryholes were the scene of a second military conflict 80 years later when English forces under Oliver Cromwell arrived in Musselburgh in 1650. Their goal was to try and take Edinburgh and Leith which were fortified and held by the Covenanter government of Scotland under Generals Alexander and David Leslie (no relations). The Leslies were a match for Cromwell and his New Model Army, but it turned out not for the interfering Covenanter ministers on their own side. However their initial plan of throwing up defensive lines between the Calton Hill and Leith, sitting behind them and waiting it out worked surprisingly well.

David (L) and Alexander (R) Leslie remonstrate with the Covenanter ministers in front of the arrayed forces of the Scottish Army in 1650.

The Covenanter army was reasonably well armed and equipped and had burnt the lands before it, it could afford to sit firm and let the elements, disease, hunger and dissent take care of Cromwell. Cromwell however, with his usual divine guidance, charged straight at the Leslies’ fortifications on the 24th July 1650. He chose the area of the Quarryholes as being a weak point and made a “furious attack… at the head of his whole army” from the east .

New Model Army infantry on the attack.

Cromwell’s forces approached from Restalrig and Jock’s Lodge while twelve of his warships fired on Leith from the Forth. The Leslies however were waiting and their artillery opened fire from positions on the Calton Hill and around Lower Quarryholes. Along a rampart constructed on the line of what is now Leith Walk the Scottish foot unleashed “a rolling fire of musketry” towards the English, supported by the cannon mounted on the old walls of Leith. The feared New Model Army was easily beat and rapidly “retired in confusion”

Covenanter musketeers form lines and fire. The ubiquitous “hodden grey” clothing and broad, blue felt bonnets were in practical terms a uniform for the Scottish infantry of this time.

Cromwell’s men left their dead and wounded and two cannon behind in their haste. Unperturbed, Cromwell circled around Arthur’s Seat and tried to attack the city from that direction. He was met by the regiment of Campbell of Lawers, one of the best in the Scottish Army. On seeing Cromwell’s intent, Campbell had marched double-time up the glen of Holyrood Park and taken up position around the ruins of St. Leonard’s chapel in the shelter of the numerous old walls there. Here he ambushed Cromwell’s men and caught them in an enfilade; firing into the exposed sides of his formations. Again the New Model Army broke. “They threw aside their muskets, pikes and collars of bandoleers and fled, abandoning their cannon, which were brought off by the [Scottish] horse brigade“. Cromwell – not used to being beaten twice in one day – retired to his HQ at Musselburgh to lick his wounds. He would rue the day he visited the Quarryholes, but ultimately had his revenge at the Battle of Dunbar – which went catastrophically badly for the Scots forces under the meddlesome interference of the Kirk men.

The Covenanter infantry are bested at Dunbar by Cromwell.

While this was the last time the Quarryholes was troubled by military matters, its dark and dangerous reputation persisted. Drownings in its dank and lonely pools were commonplace.

A Pond, by Adolphe Appian, 1867. A suitably dark and brooding representation that fits well the Quarryholes. From the collection of the Met.

As early as 1677 the Trinty Hospital had been ordered to fill up their holes on account of the danger. They did not, however, and in 1691 an English soldier, Lt. Byron, drowned there. The holes were ordered to be filled in again. Again they were not. In 1717, a chaplain by the name of Robert Irvine was found guilty of the murder of two boys in his charge by cutting their throats with a pen knife when out walking with them near the holes. Irvine was found lurking with the bodies that he had dragged into the place. Justice was swift and merciless; Irvine was sentenced to have his hands cut off and then hung until dead at the Gallow Lee at Shrubill. His hands were then placed on spikes on the Broughton Tolbooth and his body cast into the Quarryholes where he had committed his vile crimes.

Broadside Regarding the Trial and Sentence of Robert Irving, 1717, see the full thing and transcription on the NLS site.

In 1753 a butcher in the Grassmarket by the name of Nicol Brown was executed for the murder of his wife. He had gained notoriety for reputedly eating, for a drunken bet, a pound of flesh cut from the rotting corpse of wife murderer Nicol Muschet as it hung on the gibbet. Brown in turn killed his wife by setting her on fire. He too was found guilty, executed by hanging and hung in chains on the gibbet at the Gallowlee. But the body disappeared two days later, having been taken down by the Incorporation of Butchers and tossed into the Quarryholes. It was fetched back to the gibbet, but again 2 days later was back in the Quarryholes. It was said that the butchers felt mutual disgrace “thrown upon their fraternity by his ignominious exhibition there“.

The Gibbet, Sir John Gilbert. 1878 Philip V. Allingham.

In 1598 a court messenger named Thomas Dobie was found guilty of committing suicide by “drownit himself maist violentlie” in the Quarryholes. For such a slight to his profession his corpse felt the full wrath of the forces of justice. His body was taken to the Tolbooth and imprisoned before trial. Found guilty, he was sentenced to be dragged through the town backwards and hung (despite being dead) before being displayed on the gibbet. For good measure he was also handed down a fine of £1,340 Scots – the largest ever recorded in Scotland for a suicide.

“The Quarryholes had traditionally been used for ducking moral offenders or for executing women by drowning“. There are records of a woman being drowned in the Quarryholes over a case of infanticide. In 1585, Marion Clark was condemned “to be drounitt in the Quarrell hollis” for the crime of “going about the pestylens and seiknes beand apone her” i.e. she had caught the plague and had not stayed at home; concealing sickness and breaking quarantine was dealt with severely in the 16th c.

The gruesome history goes on. In 1649 a woman named Magie Bell from Corstorphine was executed for witchcraft. It was said that she had cursed a neighbour’s son to die, that he had fallen sick, and that she had then restored him by an appeal to god. Bell was further charged with making a girl sick who had refused to lend her thread, and then making worms come out of her mouth before she recovered. Under torture, Bell confessed that 18 years previously when living in the West Port of Edinburgh she had “met the Devil at the back of the town wall at the Quarrell Hollis” and was the only surviving witch of that coven, the others dying in the plague of 1646. On moving to Corstorphine she met with the devil “in the Broome” i.e. around modern Broomhall. She recanted her confession but was burned as a witch. Some of her accusers including the girl with worms in her mouth were also tried, convicted and burned.

By the middle part of the 18th century, the reputation of the Quarryholes finally began to improve. After a disastrous farming season in 1715 and relentless banditry and thieving of crops and cattle, the occupiers petitioned for the formation of the Leith Burlaw Court. Burlaw Courts were the lowest form of rural law enforcement, where disputes could be settled without going on to law courts. The farms of both Upper and Lower Quarryholes were entered into the books of the Burlaw Court. Quarrying was restarted at the Lower in the 1730s to provide local building stone but by 1766 those holes are recorded as having been filled in again. From that point on, the Lower Quarryholes was only ever a farm, and the OS town plans show it clearly .

Lower Quarryholes, from Fergus & Robinson’s 1759 plan of the North of Edinburgh. © SelfOS Town Plan of Edinburgh and Leith showing Lower Quarryholes farm. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The farm survived until the late 1920s, and an 1887 photograph of it exists in “The Story of Leith” by John Russell, surrounded by new tenements. On the opposite corner of Easter Road is the pub of Tamson’s Bar, which at one time was the Quarryholes Bar.

Lower (Nether) Quarryholes taken from Easter Road, looking west along Dalmeny Street towards the tenements of Sloan Street.

The farm survived as long as it did due to protracted development of the tenements between Dalmeny Street and Lorne Street, which can be seen in the below 1918 Bartholomew plan for the Post Office.

Bartholomew 1918 Post Office plan of Edinburgh and Leith. Lower Quarryholes is the irregular shaped collection of 3 buildings in the centre, at odds with the alignment of the streets of Victorian tenements. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The late 1920s Corporation housing infill on Dickson Street, Dalmeny Street and Easter Road marks the site of the Lower Quarryholes farm. Funny to think that as late as 1920 there was a farm on Easter Road.

Animated transition from current day Google Streetview to the photo of Lower Quarryholes farm. The mid-1920s Corporation flats at the corner of Easter Road and Dalmeny Street occupy this site now. © Self

At the Upper Quarryholes, quarrying commenced again in 1761. The holes and the buildings can be seen in the corner of a panoramic sketch by Thomas Sandby from Arthur’s Seat looking towards Leith in about 1751, looking over the roof of Holyroodhouse Palace and its Abbey church.

Looking towards Leith from Arthur’s seat, from a 1750s panorama by Thomas Sandby. Upper Quarryholes is the collections of building beyond the quarry pits in the centre of the image. The roof in the foreground is that of Holyroodhouse Abbey and Palace. CC-BY-SA National Galleries Scotland.

And the Fergus and Robinson survey of 1759 clearly shows the Upper Quarryholes and circular objects that one might imagine are actual holes!

Upper Quarryholes, from Fergus & Robinson’s 1759 plan of the North of Edinburgh. © Self

An 1801 feuing plan clearly shows the Upper Quarryholes farm buildings and at least one hole behind. The pencil lines give an idea of what was about to become of them.

1801 Feuing plan of Baron Norton’s estate at Abbeyhill. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The Upper Quarryholes were in the way of Heriot’s Hospital’s feuing plan for the Calton Hill and of Robert Stevenson’s schme for Regent Road and so they had to go. They would have been demolished around 1819.

Kirkwood’s town plan of 1821, with new planned buildings coloured in pink. The Upper Quarryholes were located in the centre of the image, between the triangle of building around Norton Place and the curving terrace of Carlton Place. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Some of the landscape features of mounds and depressions in the London Road Gardens are said to be the remains of some of the quarrying around the Upper Quarryholes.

The pits and mounds of London Road gardens, now ornamental features belying their past (CC-BY-SA Kim Traynor)

The Quarryholes, their quarries, holes and farms are long gone now, but the name does oddly linger on. If you walk to the bottom of Easter Road and look at a street sign outside the Persevere pub, you’ll see it pointing to Quarryholes. It’s not actually pointing to the site of the Quarryholes themselves but the name long persisted – both locally and officially – for the lands occupied by the Eastern Saw Mill, now the Leith Academy and its playing fields. A curiously low profile end of days for a placename that has both tumultuous and surprising (but brief) prominence in some key moments of Scottish history – and a thoroughly long and gruesome past.

The forlorn sign for Quarryholes at the foot of Easter Road.

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