Saturday, 2 June 2012

The Battle of Dunbar and the American Connection

A Summary of the Battle of Dunbar and the Scots who went to Berwick, Maine

Map from Old Berwick Historical Society collection. To enlarge map, click on small rectangle.

In January, 1649, Oliver Cromwell’s anti-Royalist forces executed King Charles I in London. Until that time, Scotland had sided with Cromwell in the English Civil War. But the king had been born in Edinburgh, and his murder dismayed his northern countrymen, who later that year defied the English Commonwealth by proclaiming as king his son, Charles II.

Above, a map shows the Scottish coast at about this period. Edinburgh, far left, is about 20 miles (32 km) from Dunbar, at far right, where armies of Scotland and England would clash over the fate of the monarchy. (Berwick-upon-Tweed and the English border are another 20 miles (32 km) further along the coast to the southeast, beyond the right edge of the map.)

	In the summer of 1650, Cromwell marched an army of 11,000 soldiers and 5,000 horsemen to Scotland to try to seize control of the castle at Edinburgh. In 2005 the view from the castle of the terrain where Cromwell would have appeared 355 summers earlier could still be seen looking east toward the Firth of Forth.
	Cromwell’s army reached Musselburgh, but was unable to capture Edinburgh in July or August.
	An army of 22,000 Scots, led by David Leslie, pushed Cromwell’s much smaller force back to Dunbar on the Firth of Forth. Here English supply ships moored, but the English army suffered from disease and starvation. The coast north of Dunbar today is bleak, as it must have been then.
	Dunbar’s High Street in 2005.
	On September 1 and 2 the Scots, having chased the English to Dunbar, took up a safe position on a hill south of town, but abandoned it to launch an attack during stormy weather on September 3. When the English counterattacked, about 3,000 Scots were killed and 10,000 captured. Today the Highway A1 winds through the battlefield area south of Dunbar.
	After the battle, Cromwell moved on to Edinburgh and seized the castle, where some 17th century defenses are still preserved today. Charles II invaded England with a Royalist Scottish army, but was crushed by Cromwell at Worcester in September 1651. The king fled, and Cromwell ruled a United Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland for nine years.
	Meanwhile, in September, 1650, Scottish soldiers captured at Dunbar who were found to be fit for labor were rounded up for servitude in such English projects as salt works, the weaving industry, and colonies in America. Largely unskilled and aged between 19 and 25, these men had been conscripts raised by the Scottish Parliament from villages and clans all over Scotland. They first were marched south from Dunbar toward the English border, following the approximate route of today’s Highway A1. For many of these young men, the panorama of Berwickshire’s wide rolling hills, with the North Sea off to the east, was they last ever saw of Scotland.
	At the English border, the Scottish covenanters were taken through Berwick-on-Tweed, shown here in 2005. They had now marched over 20 miles (32 km) from Dunbar, and were hungry and thirsty. Many drank unsafe water along they way and began to succumb to disease.
	About 90 miles (145 km) from Dunbar, an estimated 3000 Scottish prisoners reached Durham on September 11 after a week of marching with little food or water. Arriving from Newcastle, they likely crossed the River Wear over the 12th century Framwellgate Bridge that still stands today beneath Durham Castle. In 1650 the castle was already almost 600 years old. It served as a hospital for some of the dying soldiers.
	Durham’s Norman cathedral, which had been built between 1093 and 1280, served a Benedictine monastery until 1540 and is now an Anglican church and tourist landmark in the midst of the University of Durham, became a prison for the Scottish captives in the late autumn of 1650. Prisoners and guards stripped the cathedral interior to fuel their fires. Deaths from starvation and dysentery continued, at times reportedly as high as 100 per day. Altogether, the death toll among the Dunbar captives has been estimated at 1600.
	About two months after the battle of Dunbar, about 150 surviving Scottish captives were sent by sea to London, and on November 11, 1650 they were put aboard the ship Unity bound for Boston. Southern Maine, then part of Massachusetts, was an important timber source for the British Navy and the English colonies. There, not far from today’s forest in Vaughan Wood’s State Park in South Berwick, water-powered mills were being built on the upper Piscataqua River, a tidal estuary known as the Newichawannock (today Salmon Falls) River, and its tributaries. Laborers were needed.
	Iron sawblades and other iron tools were also needed to process lumber for English shipbuilding and trade. About 60 Scots who made the long sea voyage were sent to work at the Saugus, Massachusetts, iron works, then called Hammersmith, an important source of New England’s iron. Some of its iron was likely already in use at Humphrey Chadbourne’s Maine sawmill on a tributary of the Newichawannock. Many iron tools and sawblade fragments have been recently found at the Chadbourne Archaeology Project and are displayed today at the Counting House Museum.
	About 25 of the Scots were brought up the Newichawannock River with an English engineer named Richard Leader, who had directed the Saugus Iron Works. Leader was granted 400 acres that included an abandoned mill upstream from Humphrey Chadbourne’s mill on the tributary, in a gorge below the present-day Brattle Street bridge in South Berwick. Here in 1634, Chadbourne’s father had helped build some of the first mill works in America under John Mason. In early 1651 Leader set his Scottish laborers to work on a gang of 20 saws. The increased output inspired the name Great Works for the site and the tributary. A woolen mill later stood here, and electricity is generated to this day.
	After gaining their freedom, James Warren, Peter Grant, David Hamilton and other Scottish veterans lived the rest of their lives 3600 miles (5,793 km) from home, along the tidal Newichawannock (Salmon Falls) River, where waters flowing in from the ocean formed the boundary of Maine and New Hampshire.
	The names Berwick and Great Works can be traced to the forces and fate that roiled Britain in the mid-1600s and swept some young men across the Atlantic along with a new technology.

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

War Grave on Ben More

Wreckage from the Avro Anson near to the cairn on Ben More that marks the war grave

Efforts are being made to contact the families of six airmen buried at one of the most remote war graves in the UK. The crew from Scotland, England and South Africa died when their Avro Anson crashed on Ben More, a mountain in the north west Highlands, in April 1941.

It was almost a month before their bodies were found.

The crew were flying their twin-engined aircraft on a night-time cross country navigation exercise out of RAF Kinloss in Moray on 13 April. They crashed at 701m (2,300ft) on Ben More, a Munro near Inchnadamph, in Sutherland. Because of bad weather and the remoteness of the area, their bodies were not discovered until 25 May.
Those who died were: Pilot Officer William Drew, from Barrow in Furness in Lancashire; Sgt Jack Emery, of Trowbridge in Wiltshire; Flt Sgt Thomas Kenny, from Barnsley in Yorkshire; Sgt Charles Mitchell, of Aberdeen; Flying Officer James Steyn, from Johannesburg; and Sgt Harold Tompsett, of Croydon in Surrey.

The CWGC is writing to the last known addresses of the airmen's next of kin to try to let the families know that a granite memorial is to be placed at the war grave. A stone slab for the memorial has been ordered. It will be placed over the grave to preserve its integrity.

At present he burial site is marked by a cairn and pieces of the wrecked aircraft can still be found nearby

Sunday, 27 May 2012

New Book about Kilmarnock by Frank Beattie

Frank Beattie has recently had a new book about Kilmarnock published. Entitled "Kilmarnock Through Time", it costs £14.99 and can be obtained from Kev's Kards, Marco Sinforiani in the Railway Cafe and W H Smith's. "Kilmarnock Through Time" takes an affectionate and nostalgic look at the people and events which have made the town what it is today. It contains loads of previously unpublished photographs of the town.

For centuries Kilmarnock was little more than a large village, a market town for a large rural area. It was an area rich in resources and the enterprising people of the town made the best of what they had. Stone for building was quarried locally as was coal and ironstone. Coal mining led to engineering works and those engineers established businesses like Barclays, which went on to sell locomotives all over the world, and Glenfield & Kennedy, which exported hydraulic products. Cottage craft woollen industries evolved into carpet making and BMK carpets; leather crafts and shoe making led to the formation of Saxone. Whisky became important with one firm eventually dominating world sales. Johnnie Walker was founded in Kilmarnock in 1820, but was spirited away in 2012.

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Spanish Civil War Digital Archive

After a year-long digitisation project, more than 4,000 documents relating to the Spanish Civil War have been put online by the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, at www.warwick.ac.uk/go/scw.

The project has resulted in the full digitisation of 46 files from the Trades Union Congress archive, along with more than 100 (mostly revolutionary socialist or anarchist) publications from other collections. The files contain key sources on the conflict, including material on the response of British and international labour, the policy of non-intervention, the ‘Aid Spain’ movement in Britain, the attitudes of the British and French governments, and intervention by Germany and Italy. There are also files on related subjects, including the 1934 uprising in Asturias and Catalonia, and the 1936 Barcelona People’s Olympiad. Full transcriptions are given for all documents, allowing keyword searches across the collection. Background information, including a timeline and maps, has also been included to help researchers understand the context of the documents.

This archive will be invaluable to anybody interested in the Spanish Civil War.

Campaign for Arctic Convoy Medal

Campaign to recognise WWII Arctic convoy veterans

Winston Churchill said the arctic convoy mission was "the most dangerous journey in the world"

Veterans Minister Keith Brown has joined calls for official recognition for sailors who took part in Arctic convoys during the Second World War.

He is due to meet some of the surviving Scottish sailors who risked their lives delivering vital supplies to Russia.

Their ships sailed from Loch Ewe in the north west Highlands to re-supply the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel.

Men involved in the campaign are trying to persuade the UK government to award them a special medal.

Sunday, 13 May 2012

Arctic Convoy Medal Proposed

This news should please David Craig and all who served on the Arctic Convoys. David spoke to us in October 2011. (See earlier post)

Scottish minister calls for Arctic veterans medal

More than 3,000 men serving on the convoys were killed

World War II veterans who served on Arctic convoys should be given a dedicated campaign medal, Scottish government minister Keith Brown said.

The transport and housing minister described the current situation as a "scandal".

More than 3,000 seamen died in Operation Dervish, which saw supplies delivered to the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel.

The UK government is looking into calls for a special medal.

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

New Blog on Local and Family History

A new Family and Local History blog has been launched on the National Library of Scotland website.

Written by staff in the Reference Services team, the blog will highlight Scottish material in the collection which may be of interest to local and family historians.

With frequent updates, it will also provide links to external resources which have interesting information on this subject. Current posts provide information as diverse as details of readers' workshops, the 'Statistical Account for Scotland', mining deaths and Scots in Argentina and Patagonia.