2 October 1263
The so-called Battle of Largs fought on the
Ayrshire coast between Scottish royal forces and remnants of a Viking
invasion force led by King Hakon of Norway. This expedition, the last
Viking assault on Scotland, was mounted in an attempt to re-assert control
over the Hebrides Islands off the western coast of Scotland. These
islands, as well as the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea and the Orkneys and
Shetlands off the northern coast of Scotland, had long been under the
Viking yoke but had become increasingly subject to pressure from King
Alexander III of Scotland. The latter pretended to negotiate in good faith
while Hakon's large fleet waited and was then smashed by a fortuitous
tempest. The Vikings believed Scottish witches caused the storm though the
Scots attributed it to Saint Margaret. In any event, survivors coming
ashore near Largs and were attacked by vengeful Scots. Hakon landed a
rescue force but was driven off in a battle or skirmish for which few
details are available. Hakon and his surviving ships departed for the
Orkneys where he died shortly thereafter. His successor, King Magnus, made
an agreement with King Alexander III to formally transfer sovereignty of
the Hebrides to Scotland in return for the payment of an indemnity. The
Orkney and Shetland islands, however, would remain Norwegian until the
Fifteenth Century.
2 October 1852
The birth of Nobel chemist, William
Ramsay, at Queen's Crescent in Glasgow. The only child of civil engineer
William Ramsay and Catherine Robertson, he received a classic liberal
education at Glasgow Academy. Science, however, beckoned to him and he
attended the universities of Glasgow and Tubingen in Germany, earning a
Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the latter in 1872. While engaged in a
teaching career at universities in England and Scotland, he synthesized
various organic chemicals and studied the properties of liquids and gases.
In 1887, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at University College,
London, where he worked with numerous skilled collaborators between 1892
and 1898 to discover an entire family of five inert gases which he named
in Greek: argon (lazy), helium (sun), krypton (hidden), neon (new), and
xenon (strange). He laid the foundations of nuclear science with work such
as determining the atomic weight of the inert gas radon (a gas he had not
discovered) and proving that helium was formed from the radioactive decay
of radium. Ramsay was a good natured, innovative, and persistent
researcher who both acknowledged and learned from his mistakes. He
received a knighthood in 1902, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904, and
numerous other awards. He remained at London until retirement in 1912 and
died on 23 July 1916 at Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire, England. He was
married to Margaret Buchanan in 1881 and had two children.
4 October 1694
The birth of Jacobite General, Lord
George Murray, at Huntingtown, Perthshire, a son of John Murray, First
Duke of Atholl. He entered the English army in 1711, but supported the
unsuccessful Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1719 which sought to restore
the deposed Stuart Monarchy in the person of the self styled James III,
otherwise known as 'the Old Pretender.' Murray went into exile in Sardinia
though he returned to Scotland after receiving a pardon in the 1720s. When
James' son, Charles Edward Stuart, known as 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' and
'the Young Pretender,' fomented another rebellion in 1745, Murray became
the senior general in the Jacobite army. He captured Edinburgh, won an
overwhelming victory over Sir John Cope at Prestonpans, and organized a
skillful retreat of the Scottish army from Derby in England. On 17 January
1746, he defeated an English army at Falkirk but opposed Charles' decision
to make a stand at Culloden, near Inverness, in April. As Murray foresaw,
the rebels were annihilated there though both Charles and Murray escaped.
The latter first reached Ruthven and then fled to the continent where he
died on 11 October 1760 at Medemblik, The Netherlands.
6 October 1744
The birth of Canadian merchant and politician,
James McGill, at Glasgow. After attending Glasgow University, he emigrated
to Canada, making his headquarters in Montreal and becoming an important
figure in the fur trade. He invested in the North West Company and real
estate, becoming the richest man in Montreal. He represented that city in
the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada (Quebec) in 1792-1796 and
1800-1804 and was appointed a member of the province's Executive Council
in 1793. During the War of 1812 between the British Empire and the United
States of America, he served as an honorary colonel of the Montreal
Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He died suddenly in Montreal on 19 December
1813. Fortunately, his will bequeathed one of his estates, Burnside, plus
10,000 pounds for the founding of McGill University, which received its
charter in 1821 and began teaching in 1829.
7 October 1927
The birth of controversial psychiatrist,
Ronald David Laing, in Glasgow to parents he said routinely beat him.
Influenced by Freud and Marx, among others, he earned a doctorate in 1951
from Glasgow University. After serving in a British army psychiatry unit,
he studied Freudian psychiatry at the Tavistock Institute in London. In
the 1960s, he broke from tradition regarding the treatment of
schizophrenics with the theory that psychotic episodes could be naturally
healing if they occurred under the supervision of a therapist. His book,
The Divided Self: An Existentialist Study in Sanity and Madness
(1960), argued that schizophrenia was not a genetic or chemically based
illness but perhaps a sane reaction to an insane world. He also strongly
rejected treatments such as electroshock and straitjackets, preferring new
treatments with drugs like LSD and Marijuana. Such ideas appealed to the
rebellious 1960s counterculture but also prompted much criticism in
medical circles. In 1964, he founded the Philadelphia Association which
established several hostels for the humane treatment of schizophrenics.
His contention that the strains of family life fomented schizophrenia also
proved controversial and earned him an antifamily reputation. He theorized
that some family members are forced to develop false fronts to effectively
deal with stronger family members which engulfed the true or core
personality of schizophrenics resulting in split personalities. His book,
The Politics of Experience: The Bird of Paradise (1967), advanced
his theory by arguing that insane, criminal, and revolutionary people were
mystical explorers in a mechanized and vicious world. He wrote numerous
other books including the autobiographical The Making of a Psychiatrist
(1985). He died of a heart attack in St. Tropex, France, on 23 August
1989.
10 October 1802
The birth of writer and geologist,
Hugh Miller, in Cromarty on the Black Isle. The son of a sea captain who
disappeared when he was a young child, his formal education was minimal
though he was influenced by the antiquarian and natural history
enthusiasms of two uncles. Apprenticed as a stone mason at age 17, he
practiced this trade in Ross-shire while experiencing and condemning the
harshness of the Highland clearances. In 1829, he started writing verses
and articles for The Inverness Courier and folk traditions
later published as Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland
(1835). He began working in an Edinburgh bank in 1834 and wrote on
theology and Church politics. His opposition to lay patronage endeared him
to Evangelicals and he edited The Witness, 1835-1856, a newspaper
representing what became the Free Church of Scotland. He also used the
paper to publish findings reflecting his deep interests in geology and
paleontology. Unfortunately, he was apparently subject to profound sadness
and inner turmoil resulting in his suicide on Christmas Eve 1856. The
reasons will probably never be known but some have argued that he was
unable to resolve the differences between scientific rationalities and
religious dogma while others suggest he epitomized the classic dilemma
between the dream world of the Gaelic Highlands and the grim reality of
the industrial Lowlands.
11 October, Every Year
The Feast Day of Saint Kenneth,
Missionary to the Picts and one of the foremost saints of Celtic Scotland.
Born about 515 in County Derry, Ireland, and ordained 545 in Wales, he is
believed to have visited Rome. Kenneth accompanied his friend Saint
Columba or Iona to the Scottish mainland to Christianize the Picts. Near
Inverness, he is said to have paralyzed the Pictish King Brude with the
sign of the cross and subsequently converted Brude and his kingdom to
Christianity. Kenneth is known to have traveled extensively in the
Hebrides Islands where many place names are associated with him and he is
believed to have founded the royal Scottish burgh of Saint Andrews in
Fife. Returning to Ireland in 577, where he is known as Canice, he founded
a monastery in Kilkeny and the cathedral of Saint Canice in Kilkeny is
believed to be located on the site of his original church. Kenneth also
wrote a commentary on the Bible known as Glas-Choinnigh.
12 October 1866
The birth of British Prime Minister
James Ramsay MacDonald at Lossiemouth, Morayshire, an illegitimate son of
Highland plowman John MacDonald and farm servant Anne Ramsay. A model
student at Drainie Parish School, he moved to London in 1886 where he
worked as a clerk and became a radical socialist. A voracious reader, he
wrote for labor and socialist journals and became a member of the Fabian
Society and the Independent Labour Party (ILP). He resigned from the
Fabians in opposition to the Boer War, joined the London County Council,
and was elected a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester in 1906.
He emerged as Labour's foremost orator and organizer and served as Party
Leader, 1911-1914, but resigned in opposition to the outbreak of World War
I though he later supported the war effort. Colleagues believed he
betrayed his party while the public thought he betrayed his country and he
lost his seat in 1918. Returned in 1922 for Aberavon and supported by the
influx of 'Red Clydeside members, he was re-elected Party Leader and
formed the first but short lived Labour Government in 1924. His second
government, 1929-1931, had some diplomatic success but the Great
Depression brought it down. Bowing to pressure from the King and other
party leaders but alienating his own party, he headed a National
Government, 1931-1935, which stabilized the economic situation but dealt
less effectively with the rise of Nazi Germany. In failing health and
under increasing political attack from critics such as Winston Churchill,
who called him "the boneless wonder," he resigned in 1935 and died two
years later. His wife, Margaret Gladstone, who bore him six children, had
predeceased him in 1911.
13 October 1713
The birth of portrait painter and
essayist Allen Ramsay in Edinburgh. The eldest son of a noted poet of same
name, he studied painting in Edinburgh, London, and Italy. A significant
figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, he was the leading British painter
before Joshua Reynolds and was noted for his grand portraits of great
personages such as British Prime Minister, the Scottish Earl of Bute, and
French philosopher John Jacque Rousseau. Ramsay also made a lasting
impression with his intimate and sensitive portraits of women, especially
his second wife, Margaret Lindsay. In addition, he was notable in
political pamphleteering, philosophical debate, and archaeological
investigation. He was appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to King
George III in 1767 and died at Dover in August 1784.
16 October 1430
The birth of King James II, only
surviving son of James I and the English Joan Beaufort, at Holyrood in
Edinburgh. He became King in February 1437 at age six upon the
assassination of his father. During his early reign, the strong central
authority of his father collapsed as rival families such as the Crichtons,
Livingstones, and Douglases battled for control. James assumed royal
duties in 1449 when he married Mary of Gueldres and sought a restoration
of authority. He seized the Livingston estates while maintaining an uneasy
truce with the Douglases. Eventually he confronted the latter, stabbing
the Earl of Douglas to death in 1452, seizing Douglas estates, and
demolishing Douglas castles by 1455. Revenues from these seizures enabled
James to consolidate his central government, make improvements in the
administration of justice, and wage war against the English who held
outposts in the Scottish borderlands. It was while besieging Roxburgh,
which was successfully taken, that he was killed when one of his cannons
exploded as he was standing near. His nine-year-old son, also named James,
became yet another child monarch in Scotland.
17 October 1346
The Battle of Neville's Cross
fought near Bishop Auckland in the northern English County of Durham
between David Bruce, King of Scots, and the English led by the great
northern families of Neville and Percy. The Scots invaded England in
response to a plea from their French allies who had just been defeated by
the English at the Battle of Crecy. Unfortunately, in a story all too
familiar, Scottish courage could not withstand the hail of English arrows
and they suffered the same result as the French. King David was himself
wounded, in the face, and captured along with many of his men. His nephew,
Robert Steward (later King Robert II) managed to lead a remnant of the
Scottish army off the field and back to Scotland. David was to spend
eleven years imprisoned in England and was eventually joined by King John
of France who the English captured after the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.
The following year, by the Treaty of Berwick which committed the Scots to
paying a crippling ransom, David was returned to Scotland.
20 October 1792
The birth of noted imperial general
Colin Campbell at Glasgow. A son of a carpenter named Macliver, he took
his mother's maiden name of Campbell in 1807 when given a military
commission as an ensign by the Duke of York. Lacking social influence,
advancement was slow though his military experience was global. He fought
in North America during the War of 1812, in South America during an 1823
insurrection in British Guiana, in China during the Opium War of
1839-1842, and in India during the Second Sikh War of 1848-1849, for which
he was knighted. In the Crimea War against the Russians in 1854, his
Highlander Brigade, 'the thin red line,' repulsed repeated Russian Calvary
assaults at the Battle of Balaklava. In 1857, he was back in India for the
Great Mutiny where he served as Commander in Chief and was able to relieve
the cities of Cawnpore (Kanpur) and Lucknow. He was a meticulous and
economical commander concerned about the welfare of his men though
sometimes criticized for being too cautious. He was raised to the peerage
as Baron Clyde of Clydesdale in 1858 with a generous pension and made a
Field Marshall in 1862. He died at Chatham, Kent, England on 14 August
1863 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
23 October 2000
The election of Michael Martin, a Roman
Catholic from Glasgow, as Speaker of the British House of Commons. He had
served as Deputy Speaker from 1997 to 2000 and became the first Catholic
to hold the office since the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth
century. Born in 1945 and educated at St. Patrick’s Boys’ School in
Glasgow, he married Mary McLay in 1966 and worked as a sheet metal worker.
He was a shop steward at Rolls Royce (Hillington) from 1970 to 1974 and
trade union organizer from 1976 to 1979. He became a Labour Member of
Parliament (MP) from Glasgow Springburn in 1979 and served as Personal
Private Secretary (PPS) to Dennis Healey from 1980 to 1983. An experienced
committee chairman, having served on the Speaker's Panel of Chairmen and
chaired the Scottish Grand Committee since 1987, his working class origins
greatly contrasted with his primary rival for the speakership,
Conservative Baronet Sir George Young. Martin is a family man with broad
interests in history, hiking, and Highland bagpipe music.
27 October 1761
The birth of pathologist Matthew
Baillie at Shots Manse, Lanarkshire. A nephew of great anatomists William
and John Hunter, He was educated at Oxford and became a fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society. His 1793 study, Morbid
Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, was the
first systematic study of pathology ever undertaken and greatly advanced
medical teaching. A devoted doctor, by 1800 his Practice was the largest
in London. He died 23 September 1823 at Duntisbourne, Glouscestershire,
and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
31 October 1864
The birth of influential Archbishop
of Canterbury, William Cosmo Gordon Lang, at Fyvie Manse, Aberdeenshire.
Originally in training for a legal career, he attended Cuddesdon
Theological College. After serving as an Assistant Curate in a Leeds slum,
he was a Dean of Divinity at Oxford, and Vicar of the University Church.
He then became, successively, Vicar of Portsea, Bishop of Stepney,
Archbishop of York, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury from 1928 to 1942
when his friend King George VI created him Baron Lang of Lambeth. He was
also a member of the House of Lords where he was a dedicated ecumenicist
and active in ministry to slums and industrial areas. Public opinion
suspected but later acquitted him of conspiring with other British
officials to force the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936 over the
latter's involvement with a divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson. Lang
died at Kew Gardens, Surrey, England, on 5 December 1945.
By William John Shepherd
Note On Sources: Some dates are
based upon concise chronologies published by Ronald McDonald Douglas in
his Scottish Lore And Folklore (1982) and John Wilson McCoy in the
pages of The Highlander magazine in 1997. Additional dates and
information have been gleaned from my varied readings in Scottish history.
These sources include but are not limited to the following: Brown, P.
Hume. A Short History Of Scotland (1908, 1961); Donaldson, Gordon
and Morpeth, Robert. A Dictionary of Scottish History (1996);
Fisher, Andrew. A Traveller's History Of Scotland (1990); Gordon,
Ian Fellowes. Famous Scots. London: Shepheard-Walwyn Publishers,
1988; Keay, John and Julia (eds.). Collins Encyclopedia Of Scotland
(1994); Mackie, J.D. A History Of Scotland (1964, 1991); MacLean,
Sir Fitzroy. A Concise History Of Scotland (1970, 1988); Prebble,
John. The Lion In The North (1971, 1973); Sadler, John. Scottish
Battles (1998); Smout, T.C. A History Of The Scottish People,
1560-1830 (1969, 1998); Traquair, Peter. Freedom's Sword:
Scotland's Wars Of Independence (1998); Warner, Philip.
Famous Scottish Battles
(1975, 1996). |