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Looking back at March in history with The Old Edinburgh Club

February 29, 2024 7:35 am

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Looking back at March in years gone by with the Old Edinburgh Club there were many notable events

Date	Event(s)
1st:	In 1567, placards linking Mary Queen of Scots & Lord Bothwell in adultery and in Lord Darnley’s murder began to circulate in Edinburgh. And in 1682, the Advocate’s Library (now known as the National Library of Scotland and situated on George IV Bridge) was opened by its founder, Sir George Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate.
2nd:	In 1625, following the death of James VI, Charles I presented a new series of Articles concerning the burgh church (St Giles) organising the people into congregations of approximately equal size.
3rd:	In 1847, Alexander Graham Bell was born at a home in South Charlotte Street.
4th:	In 1756, artist Sir Henry Raeburn was born in Stockbridge which at the time was but a suburb of the city. And in 1890, the Forth Bridge was opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.
5th:	In 1662, the gardener, John Thomson, agreed to plant trees, herbaceous plants, and flowers of the best sort in the grounds on the south side and east end of Parliament House.
6th:	In 1457, King James II decreed in an Act of Parliament that there should be regular target practice and military parades and that “football and golf be utterly cried down and not used”; this was the first time that the games had been mentioned in Scottish documents. And in 1462, Bishop Andrew Muirhead of Glasgow promulgated a bull of Pope Pius II dated 23 October 1460 authorising the annexation of the Poor Hospital of Soutray to the Collegiate Church and Hospital of Holy Trinity in Edinburgh.
7th:	In 1744, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers was founded; the oldest known golf club in the world, it produced thirteen “Rules of Golf” for its first competition which was played for the “Silver Club”; the club played on the 5 holes at Leith Links for nearly a century. And in 1924, sculptor Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was born in Leith.
8th:	In 1859, Kenneth Grahame, author of “The Wind in the Willows”, was born in Edinburgh. And in 1940, an artillery shell was fired into Leith from Inchkeith Defensive Battery! Here’s the report: ‘Several people had remarkable escapes when a 100lb shell crashed through the walls of this house in Leith, Scotland. The shell which had been fired from a costal battery across the bows of a trawler, struck the water, ricocheted, skimmed the housetops, went through a factory roof and struck a house.’ The picture shows the local police inspecting the damage; the story ‘allegedly’ was that a young lieutenant arrived on Inchkeith with the Royal Artillery during these dark war years and the gun crew were ordered to fire a salvo across the bows of the trawler; despite the attempts of the gun crew who tried to tell this young officer that the shells were not blanks, the officer dismissed their protests and curtly ordered the crew to fire resulting in the shelling of Salamander Street; thankfully no one was injured; it was amusingly known in Leith as the ‘Battle of Salamander Street’.
9th:	In 1566, David Rizzio was savagely stabbed to death at Holyrood, in front of the heavily pregnant Mary, Queen of Scots, by Patrick Ruthven, accompanied by Darnley and the Earl of Morton’s men. And in 1907, Edinburgh-born faith healer John Alexander Dowie died in the USA.
10th:	In 1748, John Playfair, clergyman, geologist, mathematician, a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh was born in Edinburgh. And in 1792, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who was born in Parliament Square, Edinburgh, and who was the first Prime Minister of Great Britain from Scotland following the Act of Union, died.
11th:	In 1889, Jessie King (or Kean), known as the Stockbridge Murderess, was executed in Calton Jail for murdering two children whom she had adopted for a monetary consideration; she was the last woman to be hanged in Edinburgh. (The new prison and Duguld Stewart’s Monument, Calton Hill, 1887. Photo: The Cavaye Collection of Thomas Begbie/City Art Centre/Capital Collections.)
12th:	In 1971, an explosion at 11.43 AM almost totally destroyed the Bell’s Mills in Dean Village; Bell’s Mills was the last water-powered mill working in Edinburgh. (Pictured before the destruction.)
13th:	In 1650, Bailie John Binnie reported that Bessie Hutchison was to arrange the meat, drink, coal, candles, and clothes washing for the residents of Trinity Hospital at the foot of Leith Wynd.
14th:	In 1314, in the dark of night, Thomas Randolph and 30 of his men surprised the garrison of Edinburgh Castle after scaling the treacherous face of Castle Rock and successfully retook it back ending 20 years of occupation by English forces. And in 1941, seventy incendiaries were dropped at Abbeyhill.
15th:	In 1596, King James VI prayed in front of the General Assembly of the Kirk. And in 1689, Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh founded the Advocates’ Library “equipped with works written by lawyers”. Also in 1765, Dr John Thomson was born; in 1804 he was entrusted with the cataloguing, labelling, and presentation of the collections at the Surgeons’ Hall.
16th:	In 1655, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, ordered several companies of soldiers out of Edinburgh into England in order to suppress a suspected revolt. And in 1914, oceanographer John Murray, who set up the UK’s first marine laboratory in Granton, died in Edinburgh when his car overturned.
18th:	In 1689, the Earl of Leven formed the Kings Own Scottish Borderers Regiment in Edinburgh; the regiment was created to defend Edinburgh from the forces of King James VII. And in 1857, William Henry Playfair, architect, died in Edinburgh.
20th:	In 1601, Alexander Hunter was sent by the city to England and the Low Countries to recruit Flemish people for the manufacture of cloth from Scots wool.
21st:	In 1859, the National Gallery of Scotland opened in Edinburgh. And in 1925, Murrayfield Stadium was opened; in the first rugby match, Scotland defeated England 14-11 and won their first Grand Slam that year.
23rd:	In 1597, King James VI drank with the bailies, the council, and the deacons whilst the bells were rung, trumpets sounded, and drums and whistles played as reconciliation between the King and the people of Edinburgh whose amity had been disrupted the previous December. And in 1848, Reverend Thomas Burns founded a Free Church Settlement in New Zealand, which later became known as Dunedin; architect Charles Settle was asked to aim to replicate the characteristics of the streets of Edinburgh, with a mixture of grand and quirky designs.
25th:	In 1810, the Commercial Bank of Scotland was founded in Edinburgh by John Pitcairn, Lord Cockburn and others; in 1958 it merged with the National Bank of Scotland to become the National Commercial Bank of Scotland; then ten years later the National Commercial Bank merged with the Royal Bank of Scotland.
26th:	In 1797, James Hutton, the geologist whose studies into the formation of the earth helped form the basis of modern geology, died in Edinburgh – he was buried in his mother’s family (Balfour) section of the Covenanters Prison; his grave was unmarked until the memorial plaque was added in 1947. And in 1832, the Caledonian Mercury reported on several cases of cholera throughout the city.
27th:	In 1498, speaking in the name of the King, the provost, bailies, and council banned anyone from the outlying villages such as Swanston, Currie, Under Cramond, and Hailes from entering the city due to an outbreak of contagious pestilence in those areas. And in 1871, Edinburgh hosted the first Scotland-England rugby match at Raeburn Place where 20 a side played; Scotland won.
29th:	In 1783, the Royal Society of Edinburgh was incorporated by charter.
31st:	In 1689, John Chiesly of Dalry shot and killed the Lord President of the Court of Session, George Lockhart, as revenge for an unfavourable judgement against the said Chiesly.