Australian girls at a Highland Gathering at Sydney Showground on New Year’s Day.
1st January 1937. Photographed by Sam Hood.
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Tag Archives: Scottish
On this day: a Rail Disaster in London
The United Kingdom’s worst peacetime rail disaster occurred at London’s Harrow and Wealdstone station on the 8th of October, 1952.
112 people were killed when the City of Glasgow – an express train from Perth, Scotland – crashed into the back of a local passenger train at rush hour. The wreckage covered other rail lines, resulting in a third train – another express – to crash.
The wrecked City of Glasgow.
In addition to over a hundred deaths, 340 other people were injured, with 88 transported to hospital for treatment.
An investigation found that the driver of the Perth train missed three signals before crashing, but as those involved were killed, the reason for this was never discovered.
On this day: Troops on the March
The march to the sea. First World War.
5th October 1914: French Cavalry on the march pass troops of the 1st Battalion, Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). The British soldiers slept hidden during the day and marched at night.
Germany had declared war on France two months earlier. The photograph is credited to British Army officer Robert Cotton Money (1888-1985).
Burns Night
Scottish poet Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January, 1759.
The date is celebrated in Scotland and by the Scottish diaspora as Burns Night.
On this day: the first assassination by a firearm
A detail of a 1561 painting of the Regent.
The first recorded assassination by firearm happened in Scotland on the 23rd of January, 1570. James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray and Regent of Scotland was killed at Linlithgow Palace.
Miles Birket Foster’s 19th century painting of Linlithgow Palace
The assassin was James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.
A nineteenth century depiction of the killing.
Some accounts of the execution were recorded centuries after it happened, making some facts a little bit unclear.
One version states that Lady Mondegreen was killed by a second shot, but this is a myth.
On this day: the last execution for blasphemy in Britain
On the 8th of January, 1697, Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead was hanged for blasphemy. He was the last person in Britain to be executed for the crime, and was eighteen at the time.
The gallows at Grassmarket in Edinburgh.
Aikenhead was put on trial in Edinburgh and found guilty in December the year before. He was hanged at 2pm.
This final execution for blasphemy came 85 years after the final person was burnt for heresy.
On this day: the Tay Bridge Disaster
At 7:13pm on the 28th of December, 1879, the Tay Rail Bridge in Scotland collapsed as a train passed over it.
The collapsed bridge, photographed in either 1879 or 1880.
Everyone on board was killed. Only forty-six bodies were recovered, but judging by tickets sold for the journey, over seventy are thought to have died.
The bridge photographed shortly before the disaster.
The weather had been terrible at the time, and as the train proceeded onto the bridge there was a bright flash of light before the train disappeared, falling into the river below. The signalman at the other end did not comprehend what had happened and at first refused to believe the train had crashed.
The locomotive was retrieved from the river and put back into use. It is photographed above in 1880.
