Harman Patil (Editor)

1939 in Scotland

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Centuries:
  
18th 19th 20th 21st

Decades:
  
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s

Events from the year 1939 in Scotland.

Contents

Incumbents

  • Monarch — George VI
  • Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal — John Colville

    • Law officers

  • Lord Advocate — Thomas Mackay Cooper
  • Solicitor General for Scotland — James Reid

    • Judiciary

  • Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General — Lord Normand
  • Lord Justice Clerk — Lord Aitchison
  • Chairman of the Scottish Land Court — Lord Murray

    • Events

  • 2 January — All-time highest attendance for a U.K. Association football league game as 118,730 people watch Rangers beat Celtic in an "Old Firm derby" played at Ibrox Park in Glasgow.
  • April — RAF Lossiemouth becomes operational.
  • 3 September — World War II:
  • Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Nazi Germany.
  • Clyde-built liner SS Athenia becomes the first civilian casualty of the war when she is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-30 in the vicinity of Rockall. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed; the first survivors are brought in to Greenock.
  • 4 September
  • Civil servants of the Scottish Office begin to occupy its first office in Scotland, St Andrew's House on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.
  • Several Citizens Advice Bureaux are founded in the United Kingdom to provide wartime information to the public, including Citizens Advice Edinburgh in Scotland.
  • 30 September — Jackie Paterson wins the British flyweight boxing title in an open-air bout in Glasgow.
  • 14 October — World War II: HMS Royal Oak sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands with the loss of 833 crew.
  • 16 October — World War II: First enemy aircraft shot down by RAF Fighter Command, a Junkers Ju 88 brought down into the sea by Spitfires following an attack on Rosyth Naval Dockyard.
  • 17 October — World War II: First bomb lands in the U.K., at Hoy in the Orkney Islands.
  • 28 October
  • A dust explosion in the colliery at Valleyfield, Fife, kills 35.
  • World War II: First enemy aircraft forced down on British soil by RAF Fighter Command, a Heinkel He 111 brought down near Humbie by a Spitfire flown by Archie McKellar following reconnaissance of the Firth of Clyde.
  • 30 October — World War II: British battleship HMS Nelson is unsuccessfully attacked by U-56 under the command of captain Wilhelm Zahn off Orkney and is hit by three torpedoes, none of which explode; Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty), Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound (First Sea Lord) and Admiral Charles Forbes (Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet) are onboard.
  • 1 December — World War II: German submarine U-21 torpedoes Finnish vessel Mercator off Peterhead and the Norwegian Arcturus in the Firth of Forth.
  • 2 December — World War II: Swedish cargo ship Rudolf hits a mine and sinks off St Abb's Head.
  • 4 December — World War II: Battleship HMS Nelson is badly damaged by a mine (laid by U-31) at the entrance to Loch Ewe.
  • 12 December — Escorting destroyer HMS Duchess (H64) sinks after a collision with battleship HMS Barham (04) off the Mull of Kintyre in heavy fog with the loss of 124 men.
  • 17 December — Danish cargo ship Bogo sinks off Fife Ness.
  • 21 December — Boom defence vessel Bayonet explodes at Leith.
  • HMS Spartiate is established as a Royal Navy shore establishment for Western Approaches Command at St Enoch's Hotel, Glasgow.
  • Strathcarron Reservoir on the River Carron is completed.

    • Births

  • 16 April — Donald MacCormick, broadcast journalist (died 2009)
  • 2 May — Mairi Hedderwick, illustrator
  • 11 June — Jackie Stewart, racing driver
  • 19 October — David Clark, Labour politician
  • 31 October — Trish Godman, Labour politician
  • Don Cameron, balloonist
  • Duncan Macmillan, art historian

    • Deaths

  • 18 April — Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, patron and promoter of women's interests (born 1857 in London)
  • 20 April — William Mitchell Ramsay, archaeologist and New Testament scholar (born 1851)

    • The Arts

  • 18 May — Cosmo Cinema opens in Glasgow as an art film theatre.
  • Ian Niall's novel Wigtown Ploughman: Part of His Life is published under the author's real name, John McNeillie.

    • References

    1939 in Scotland Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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