Smoke billows from huge flames across Fife as crews tackle 'multiple' wildfires

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/smoke-billows-huge-flames-across-37056897

The thread about John Paul Jones; the Scottish-American “pirate” who tried to capture Edinburgh and Leith but lived to tell the tale

This thread was originally written and published in December 2019.

It was on a day like this, 240 years ago, with a west wind howling up the Firth of Forth, rattling the window panes and lifting the roof tiles, that Edinburgh and Leith were saved from sacking by the fledgling United States Navy. The year was 1779 and it was the middle of the War of Independence when a squadron of American ships of war appeared in the Firth. Their objective; to disrupt shipping, spread panic and “raise a contribution” to the American war effort of two hundred thousand pounds from the wallets of the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith. These ships were the 36-gun Bon Homme Richard, the 32-gun Pallas and the 12-gun Vengeance and in command was one John Paul Jones. To the Americans a great hero, a father to their naval service:

To the British, a common pirate. Of course, they would say that, because he beat them at their own game, rattled the establishment to its core and made the mighty Royal Navy look rather impotent.

So who was John Paul Jones? For a start, he wasn’t born as John Paul Jones or an American, he was actually from Kirkcudbrightshire. He was born in 1747 as plain John Paul to John Paul (senior), a gardener and Jean Mcduff. In 1760, John junior was apprenticed to a sea captain in Whitehaven and took to the seven seas on the merchant ship Friendship. He sailed the Atlantic trade route, mainly between Britain and the colony of Virginia where his older brother was settled.

For quite a few years John kept this up, working his way up the ranks to First Mate by 1768. At this point fate begins to intervene and steer his life on a new course. In Jamaica, he decides to abandon his ship and work his passage back to Scotland. Once home, he finds a new ship – the appropriately named John – and is taken on as lower mate. When the master and leading mates unexpectedly die of fever, he takes command and brings the ship and her cargo safely home. In gratitude, the owners raise him to master. So at the tender age of 23, John finds himself a ship’s master with 10 years experience under his belt; life has worked out well for him. But then some things start to go wrong. On only his seconnd voyage as master he has someone flogged for insubordination. This was a very common and non-noteworthy act for the time, sailors were kept in check with fairly equal proportions of corporal punishment, alcohol and the promise of the occasional pay packet.

But the flogged man has connections back in Scotland and when he died (from Yellow Fever), the blame for his death is laid at the feet of John. As a young captain from a humble family he has little influence himself over matters once he’s off his ship and finds himself thrown in the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright to await his fate. But clearly he is not without any friends as he is bailed and given some quiet advice to get far away from Kirkcudbright before the law has its way. This was sensible advice, which was followed.

As a result he quickly leaves Scotland for England and finds a new ship, the Betsy, and spends 18 successful months toing and froing in the Caribbean, before once again clashing with a subordinate crewmember. This time, he allegedly runs the man through with a sword in an argument over pay. He would claim this was self defence, but having fled from the law before he must have realised that he couldn’t go back and face any more music the music and so headed north to the Virginia colony in about 1772. He finds that his brother has died and so takes takes over his affairs there.

Perhaps it is to cover his tracks that in Virginia he changes his name to John Paul Jones, with American folk legend suggesting that it was in honour of statesman Willie Jones. JPJ takes to his new home and when war breaks out with Britian he signs up to fight for his adopted homeland against that of his birth. Whether this was opportunism or patriotism is not clear but in 1775 he is part of the newly formed Continental Navy. As an experienced sailor and officer, JPJ’s potential is recognised by founding father Richard Henry Lee and he is appointed First Lieutenant of the frigate Alfred. Like most US ships of this time it’s a converted merchantman, but the line between smaller naval and civilian ships at this time was rather blurry so it was not that uncommon.

It is apparently JPJ who had the honour of hoisting the Grand Union Flag – the first national flag of the United States, on a US ship, for the first time. He and the Alfred sail to the Caribbean and raid Nassau, but after this this point he takes a demotion to a smaller ship, the sloop Providence, as a step on the ladder to commanding a frigate of his own.

Long story short, JPJ rapidly impresses his superiors with a combination of skill, aggression and good luck. By 1778 he is in charge of the new frigate Ranger. On February 14th, on the Ranger, he took a salute from a French naval squadron under La Motte Picquet in the Robuste at Quiberon Bay, the first official recognition of the young American state by a foreign government.

He is now sent to take the war to the British on the other side of the Atlantic but finds that his crew – and in particular his officers – are completely lacking, unwilling to take risks or to follow his orders. A raid on the sloop HMS Drake fails due to poor seamanship. A raid on Whitehaven, his old home port, fails due to a combination of poor weather and an uncooperative crew who decided to visit the pub instead of set fire to the shipping in the harbour.

JPJ next hatches a plot to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk for ransom from St. Mary’s Isle, but this scheme is foiled as the Earl is away; the Americans are instead cordially entertained by the Earl’s wife before leaving after helping themselves to some silverwear. (JPJ would later buy the loot back, at his own expense, and return it to the Selkirks).

The effect on British morale and general public alarm was much significant. Here were American rebels acting with impunity, not just in British waters but also on the land! It was a national scandal. But the reality was that his raiding around the Solway proved fruitless and resulted in a crew who were restless from the lack of prize money. And so JPJ sails the Ranger back across the Irish Sea and finally catches up with his previous quarry, the sloop HMS Drake, off of Carrickfergus. A roughly equal fight on paper, he deploys a ruse to get the initial jump on Drake before bettering her with skilful gunnery. Five of the British crew, including their captain and the first lieutenant, were killed in the fight and after an hour the Drake surrendered. This was another national scandal for the Royal Navy in home waters at the hands of the young man from Kirkcudbright.

JPJ has Drake sailed to Brest to be sold to the French as a prize. This was finally a great victory for him and the Continental Navy, but there was much acrimony between captain, second in command Lt. Simpson (who he tries and fails to have court-martialled) and the crew. In France, JPJ is given a bigger ship, the merchantman Duc de Duras, which has been gifted to the US Navy by a sympathiser. On conversion to a 40-gun warship he has her named Bonhomme Richard after Ben Franklin, who used the pseudonym “Poor Richard” to publish his almanac in Paris

JPJ assembles a little fleet and prepares for war in Lorient in June 1779 but is forced back from his initial cruise by bad weather and in need of repairs. A second attempt is made in August; Bonhomme Richard, Pallas and Vengeance are accompanied by the French naval cutter Le Cerf and two privateers, Monsieur and Granville. Monsieur falls out with JPJ only days out of port and leaves the fleet – falling out with his subordinates is quickly becoming something of a hallmark for JPJ’s expeditions. But this time the Royal Navy are better prepared and locate and attempt to chase the Americans. He is able to lead them on a merry dance around the north of Scotland before shaking the pursuers off. On his way, despite ongoing squabbles with other officers, he is able to take 16 merchant ships as prizes.

And so it was on the 16th September 1779 that there is great alarm on both banks of the Forth when John Paul Jones and his three remaining ships (the others had returned to France by this time with the prizes), appeared in the Forth intent on sailing up it and doing as they pleased.

A panic spreads through Edinburgh and Leith. The moneyed classes secure their goods and flee the city for their estates. The banks are locked up, the garrison barricade themselves in Edinburgh Castle, the church bells are rung and “neither a carriage nor a horse [was] to be seen“. Leith’s fortifications, the great Marian walls and the Cromwellian citadel are decrepit, having been partially slighted and then left to the elements and those intent on pilfering the masonry for building material. A more fundamental problem is that they were never designed to offer defence from seaward, but from landward. But the enterprising folk of Leith try to mount a defence of sorts as best they can. Three spare old cannon were retrieved from the Naval Victualling Yard on Constitution Street and manhandled along to the walls of the Citadel.

The remains of the citadel do at least provide something of a raised firing platform to cover the mouth of the harbour, but this battery was “extremely perilous to those who worked it“. Edinburgh sent down a couple more old cannon and gunners from the castle and these were posted near Newhaven with small arms were handed out to the Incorporated Trades of Leith. With this meagre defence, the town battened down the hatches and awaited its fate.

But the folk of Kirkcaldy, on the opposite shore of the Forth, take an alternative approach to defence. They follow their minister, the Reverend Robert Shirra, down to the sea and begin to pray for almighty intervention.

Now deer Lord, dinna ye think it a shame for ye to send this vile piret to rob our folk o Kirkcaldy; for ye ken they’re puir enow already, and hae naething to spaire

And would you know the almighty happened to be listening? For no sooner had Kirkcaldy prayed for salvation than, in the words of John Paul Jones, “a very severe gale of wind came on, and being directly contrary obliged me to bear away after having in vain endeavoured for some time to withstand its violence“.

As the wind blew up, JPJ’s ships were not yet in the shelter of Leith Roads in the lee of Inchkeith island where they could ride out the storm, so despite being “in a cannon’s shot of the town” they were obliged to follow the wind back out to sea. In the process, the ship Friendship they had taken in prize was lost. The little fleet was blown straight out of the Firth and down the east coast. Edinburgh, Leith and Kirkcaldy have been saved!

A week later the Royal Navy finally encounters JPJ off Flamborough Head when he runs into a convoy of merchant ships under their protection and a somewhat scrappy and confused battle takes place. In the course of the action, the Bonhomme Richard is damaged so heavily that she will sink the next day, but JPJ in return manages to capture the British flagship HMS Serapis and takes her instead.

The outcome of the battle is still hotly debated; JPJ and the Americans can claim another embarrassing Royal Navy scalp, in sight of British soil and once again they have failed to stop JPJ. But the merchant convoy – the real prize – has slipped away unharmed. However that is a somewhat hollow strategic victory for the Royal Navy. Once Again, the Americans press have their hero and the British their villain.

After the battle, JPJ wants to head for France, but his subordinates insist they follow orders and head for the neutral Dutch island of Texel in the United Provinces. A tricky diplomatic incident ensues as they have lost the Continental Navy’s flags when Bonhomme Richard went down, and couldn’t fly the Royal Navy’s ensigns from the Serapis and so were technically operating under no flag. This allowes the British to claim that they were pirates. So, based on only a written description, (“colors should be white, red, and blue alternately to thirteen… [with a] blue field with thirteen stars… in the canton“) JPJ had his men run up a new – and rather unconventional – Continental Navy flag. The Dutch dutifully checked that the flag matched the description (they were very unlikely to know what the flag of an American warship should look like as they’d probably never seen one) and entered it with a sketch in their records to make it official.

With its 8-pointed stars and irregular groupings of red/white/blue tricolour stripes, the “Serapis flag” is unique, the true work of a sailor handy with needle and thread and not someone versed in the rigid conventions of vexilology. John Paul Jones’ wacky flag was enough to save him from international charges of piracy and now takes pride of place on the coat of arms of the US warships that have taken his name.

Back in Leith, plans were immediately drawn up for a new artillery fort to protect the port and the city of Edinburgh behind from the sea. These were drawn up by local celebrated architect James Craig – who laid out Edinburgh first New Town – despite him having no background in military engineering. The fort and the land on which it was built were provided “at the expense of the citizens of Edinburgh and Leith“. It was a fairly straightforward defensive structure, a half-moon battery of cannon facing out to sea, protected by a perimeter ditch, low masonry wall and a large earthen glacis heaped up infront of it to seeward. To the landward there is were a pair of blockhouse corner bastions to protect it from rear assaults. The Fort’s battery of guns covered the navigable channel of the approach to the Port of Leith.

So there you have it, the tale of the lad from Kirkcudbrightshire that the Royal Navy couldn’t sink, who tried to capture the Earl of Selkirk, who put the willies up the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith, who rocked the vexilogical world but who could not overcome a Kirk minister and the weather. Oh, and how this modern street on the site of Leith Fort got its name:

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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Ocksters, Oxscares and Oxcars: the thread about the islands of the Forth and what some of their names mean

Oxcars. A lump of rock crowned by a lighthouse in the Firth of Forth. I was interested to see that a 17th century variation of the name was Ocksters – the Scots word for armpit!

A few years previously it’s down as Ockstairs on the original sketches for John Adair’s map of the Forth, but then in a 1703 imprint it has been amended to Oxscares. The oldest variation is recorded in 1621 as Oixtaris in the Register of the Privy Council on the subject of the need for a beacon on these rocks, which are submerged at high tides.

If you are wondering where these variations come from, then wonder no more. The root is Ox Scaris, as in ox skerries; ox being the animal and skerries being intertidal rocks. Ocksters etc. are simply phonetic variations. It’s likely this animal theme lent its name to the neighbouring rock of Cow(s) & Calves, which was traditionally Muckriestone as it lies off the north on Admiralty coastal charts.

Working our way down the Forth from it’s outer reaches, we can explore the toponymy of the islands; the meanings of their place names. The Isle of May, at the eastern extreme, is likely from the old Norse, Má ey or gull island. Stands to obvious reason. The Gaelic Magh, an open field, is less likely.

About 8 miles south, and a little west, of the May is the Bass Rock, whose unmistakable outline is prominent along the East Lothian coast. The origin of its name has been lost to history, John Milne suggests a relation to death, from the Gaelic bàs, as it was long a place of banishment and execution, but that’s just conjecture and some of Milne’s use of Gaelic is often a little bit too convenient. But we do know that the Bass gives the scientific species name to the Northern Gannet – Morus bassanus – for which it is the largest colony. These animals were scientifically described as far back as the 16th century as Anser bassanus, and later in the 18th by Linnaeus as Sula bassana. The Scots word for them was however the solendguse or solen goose. In the spring and summer, the Bass takes on a white appearance, caked in the birds and their droppings.

Moving west, the next island is Craigleith. Milne suggests the Gaelic Creag Liath – the grey rock. (In Gaelic, Liath – is the colour of a blue sky, but when used in reference to the landscape it refers to something being greyish. This is a feature of the Gaelic language when dealing with place names; the colour use is subjective and descriptive, not literal). However Craigleith is actually comprised of very dark, volcanic rocks – it needs to be squinted at in combination with the stains of guano to take on a greyish hue. It should also be noted that in Gaelic the word liath does not have the soft “th” ending that Leith does in English. Notice on the 18th century map below that the earliest spelling is Lieth, with the I before the E, which was also the case at this time for maps showing the port and town of Leith along the coast.

Next up is The Lamb. Milne goes for the easy Gaelic Làmh for an arm or handle, one assumes for the shape, but in that language the –mh sounds like an English –v. As I said before, sometimes Milne’s use of Gaelic for the roots of place names seems to be just too convenient. There might also be a Norse origin for the name, or it may simply be named after the animal (see already Oxcars, Cows & Calves). It is after all flanked by the North andSouth Dog rocks. This island was bought by Uri Geller (yes, that Uri Geller) in 2009 so he could dowse for Egyptian treasure on it. Yes, I’m being serious, he described that it’s an analogue for the layout of the Egyptian pyramids and holds the buried treasure of Princess Scota. He recently told the BBC that he has spent a single night on his island and didn’t enjoy it one bit and was declaring the island a micronation, the Republic of Lamb. In January 2026 Mr Geller again made the headlines when he declared Donald Trump an honorary citizen and president of the island.

Moving west is Fidra, for which Milne once again gives a fanciful Gaelic derivation, but it’s now believed to be Old Norse, from Fiðrey or Feather Island as a result of all the seabirds. Eider feathers would have been gathered here in yore for use in bedding. Robert Louis Stevenson based his plan for Treasure Island on Fidra (amongst other islands). Like its eastern neighbour, Fidra too is guarded by North and South Dogs.

Next along is Eyebroughy, the fourth and final of the basalt islands between North Berwick and Aberlady. It is shown as Ibris in Adair’s 18th century chart and the 1850s Ordnance Survey place name book for East Lothian also gives Eyebrochy. The Old Norse Ey for island seems an obvious start for the word, but I cannot find a reference explaning the second part.

There is now something of a gap until the next major island; it is 12.5 miles from Eyebroughy to Inchkeith, which looms large in the centre of the Firth. Its etymology gets a whole chapter on its Wikipedia page, but the logical explanation may be Innse Coit, a hybrid of old Gaelic (Island) and Welsh (wooded); a wooded island. The oldest recorded form is Ked in the 13th century, but as the Place Names of Fife points out, its an unlikely candidate to be known for being wooded, so once again we probably just don’t know. It was used to quarantine victims of syphilis from Leith and Edinburgh in the 15th century, of that we do know. The Grandgore (syphilis) Act of 1497, saw the island made a place of “Compulsory Retirement” for sufferers, obliged to board a ship at Leith and to remain on their island “till God provide for their health“.

Interestingly, the Georgian mapmaker extraordinaire of Scotland, William Roy, left Inchkeith off his Great Maps of both the Lowlands and Highlands, with the Forth forming the boundary between these two geographical divisions in the east of the country. But there is a square that looks like a repair where it should be…

Next up is Oxcars, 5.5 miles west of Inchkeith, where we started this thread. If we move south from there we get to Inchmickery and Mickrystone (now Cows & Calves, as previously mentioned also). The derivation of Mickery may be from the Gaelic Innis nam Bhiocaire, island of vicars, as like most of the islands of the Forth it has been a Christian retreat at one time or another. The island was fortified during both World Wars, and it’s not without good reason that there’s a legend that its outline was deliberately made to look like an anchored battleship. The logic is that any U-boat commander who made it into the Forth would pop up his periscope, be taken in by the cunningly disguised island and would have fired his torpedoes and disappeared before realising he’d wasted them on a rock. If you know your Royal Navy ships, the fortifications are a reasonably good likeness to HMS Nelson and Rodney, but I have it on expert authority that the legend is precisely that, a legend.

North of Cows & Calves is Inchcolm; probably the best known of the Forth Islands and certainly the most visited. It is named for Saint Columba (Colum Cille in Gaelic) who reputedly visited it in the 6th century. The modern name is from the Gaelic Innis Choluim orColumba’s Island. The old joke goes “how many inches are there in the Forth?” and you’re meant to count the islands. In The Scottish Play, Shakespeare refers to the place as Saint Colmes Ynch.

Just off Inchcolm lies Inchgnome, but the jury of the best minds in Scottish placenames is still out on where that one might come from. Probably from some obscure Gaelic saint.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwshack/26451815521

South and west lies Cramond Island, which obviously takes its name from the village off which it lies. That in turn comes from Caer Amond, Caer being old British for a fortification (referring to Roman fort on the site), and Amond or Almond is the river of that name. Like the rivers Esk and Avon (and others), River Almond is a tautology as the latter word simply means river.

Another tautological place name is the island of Carcraig , just northwest of Inchcolm. The Car element is an Scots word for rock (from the Old English Carr) and the Craig bit is the Scots word for the same, from the Gaelic Creag.

The other principal islet off of Inchcolm is Meadulse. This rock is entirely covered by the tide which makes it an excellent growing place for seaweed and the name likely comes from the edible dulse which grows there and is known to have been a medieval food source.

The final, and westernmost, of the Inches of the Forth is Inchgarvie, that convenient supporting foothold for the Forth Bridge. Its name is likely from the Gaelic Innse Garbh, or rough island, the –bh sound in Gaelic sounding like a –v in English. This is on account of its rugged appearance (and perhaps its legendary population of giant rats!).

Upstream of the Forth Bridge there are fewer islands. The Beamer Rock‘s name is quite literal, and refers to an early beacon that was there from time immemorial to guard ships from it. The older form was Bimar or Bymerskyrr, the –skyrr from the Scots skerry, for a low islet or sea rock. This islet suffered the indignity of having the very beacon it was named for demolished (the base was blown up with explosives) in 2011 to make way for a tower of the Queensferry Crossing.

I won’t move any further west than this, as this site is principally concerned with the geography of Edinburgh, Leith and the Lothians. However there are of course countless other islets and named rocks in the Forth. Many of these are simply a variation on Craig, Carr and Bush, all words referring to rocks. Selected others in the Edinburgh area include:

• Birnies, a collection of tidal rocks at Granton. I cannot find a description of the name, but the –birnie in the placename Kilbirnie comes from the Gaelic Cill Bhraonaigh, or Saint Brendan.
• Another rock near the Birnies, Chestnut logically takes its name from its similarity of appearance to the fruit of that tree
• General’s Rock on the Granton Foreshore, allegedly where English forces under Lord Hertford (Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset) landed in 1544 before the burning of Edinburgh and Leith.
• Gunnet Ledge, a navigational hazard directly north of the entrance to the Port of Leith and west of Inchkeith, marked by a pair of bouys called the East and West Gunnet since at least the start of the 19th century. Probably a variation of Gannet, alternative older spellings include Dunnet and Guneet.
• Martello Rocks, sitting at the old tidal entrance to the Port of Leith and named retrospectively for the Martello Tower that was constructed upon them to defend the approaches
• Megmillar another intertidal rock off of the Granton foreshore, whose name I can find no explanation for.

The names of many of these islands were given to Council housing tower blocks built in the north of the city in the 1950s and 60s. There re are of course many more, but I hope this whistle stop tour has been of some interest.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The mining of the “Saucy” and the “Firefly”: the thread about the WW2 loss of forty-two lives in the Forth

I was looking for something in Seafield Cemetery last week and couldn’t help but stop by the war graves. Some are for merchant seamen and many of them were from HMS Saucy, lost with all hands on this day (September 4th) in 1940. As yesterday was Merchant Navy Day, this is a doubly appropriate time to relate their story.

The Saucy was built for the Royal Navy in Hull in 1918 as a 600-ton, 155ft-long Frisky-class rescue tug. She was sold out of service in 1924 but kept her name and was requisitioned in 1939, returning to the UK from Shanghai. She was crewed by merchant seamen, serving under officers of the Royal Navy Reserve (RNR men were professional merchant naval officers who had joined the reserves to be called up in times of war).

Saucy was based on the Forth at Rosyth, her duties to assist in any damaged vessels entering the estuary and was at sea on September 3rd (Merchant Navy Day and exactly 1 year into the war) when she brought in a damaged Dutch merchant ship that had been bombed by German aircraft. With this charge safely brought in, she headed back out on patrol in the early morning of the 4th. Contact was soon lost with her when she was in a position about 1.5 miles west of the island of Inchkeith; the unfortunate tug had hit a mine and gone down almost instantly, taking all 281 on board with her. It is not clear whose mine she had struck, it may have been dropped by a German aircraft, but just as likely it may have been a “friendly” mine that had broken free from its moorings and had floated further into the Firth.

Of the crew the 3 officers were all RNR men and the 25 ratings were all merchant seamen. Eighteen came from the Devonshire fishing town of Brixham, 7 from the same extended family. Eight bodies were recovered, 5 of them of Brixham men and all were buried at Seafield – although one was never formally identified.

On this day in 2004, a memorial plaque was dedicated in Brixham Harbour to the men who were lost – it has 26 individual names, however different sources list 27 names and some say there were 28 on the ship’s roll. See footnote.

A new HMS Saucy was named in her honour in 1942, an Assurance-class rescue tug. The wreck of her predecessor was marked with a buoy in 1940, but it was largely lost by 1945. Sonar surveys by the Navy in 1967 and 1871 failed to locate it, but it was found again by the minehunter HMS Sandown in 1992, and her divers explored the wreck in 1993 and found it to be remarkably intact in 15m of water, position 56° 2′ 10″N, 3° 10′ 33″W.

The men whose bodies were never found are further commemorated on the Liverpool Naval Memorial, which commemorates almost 1,400 merchant sailors who died serving with the Royal Navy during WW2 and have no known resting place.

Alongside the men from the Saucy at Seafield lie three others who lost their lives to sea mines that year; Lt. D. B. Johnstone RNVR, Chief Petty Officer C. E. Baldwin RN D.S.M. and Sub Lt. C. Dobson RNVR. All three died on HMS Firefly in February 1940. Baldwin had earned the Distinguished Service Medal early in the war for being the first to defuse a German magnetic mine, allowing it to be captured, inspected and countermeasures devised.

Firefly was a requisitioned civilian trawler, hired from her owners as a minesweeper. Trawlers were perfect for this sort of work, which required a seaworthy vessel that could handle the towing of “sweeps” that cut mines free from their moorings before the crew destroyed them (usually by shooting it with a rifle until it exploded).

On February 3rd 1940, Firefly was in the Forth, her crew attempting to defuse a British mine that had gotten loose and was posing a hazard to shipping. These sort of mines look exactly like they do in cartoons; a buoyant, black sphere with spiky “horns” in which the detonators are mounted.

Firefly was stopped in the water, her crew watching from the railings while a detachment in the row boat carefully manoeuvred alongside the mine to defuse it; dangerous but routine work. Without warning they were hit by the wake of a passing destroyer, which pushed the mine onto the boat. The horn contacted one of the boat’s oars, and 200-250lb of explosives was detonated. Everyone on the boat was killed instantly, as were all except one watching on deck (who would die the next day from his wounds). Only the 3 men in the wheelhouse and 1 in the galley survived from a crew of 18. Sadly one of the four survivors, Lt. Andrew Macgavin Maclean RNVR, would die in the Royal Infirmary two weeks later as a result of infection, he was laid to rest in Strathblane Parish Churchyard (I am indebted to Pat Davy of Strathblane Heritage Society for this information).

Remarkably, the vessel herself was largely intact – apart from damage to her superstructure – and she was towed into Leith by the minesweeping trawler HMS Wardour and repaired. She returned to service, recommissioning in June 1940, and serving out the rest of the war. Returned to her owners and renamed St. Just, she fished out of Harwich until 1961. Wardour herself was sunk by a mine she was clearing in October 1940 but her crew survived. In a curious coincidence, a previous HMS Firefly was one of the first ships to strike a naval mine (which at the time were referred to as “Infernal Machines”) when she and HMS Merlin ran into a Russian minefield off Sveaborg in the Baltic Campaign of 1855, although both survived. In another odd twist of fate, the Firth of Forth was the location of both the first loss of a ship to a torpedo in WW1 (the cruiser HMS Pathfinder), and the last such in WW2 (the Canadian steamer Avondale Park and the Norwegian collier “Sneland I).

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

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The thread about the Calton Hill Naval Telegraph and the Forth coast’s Napoleonic communication system

Edinburgh’s City Art Centre shared this wonderful 1797 painting by George Walker this morning (July 11th 2023), showing the east of the old city as viewed from the vicinity of St. Anthony’s Chapel in Holyrood Park. This was an extremely popular viewpoint for 18th and 19th century artists and there are any numbers of etchings, watercolours and prints of this vista, making it a good record of the changes in the city over this time period.

This image of course poses the question: “what on earth is that enormous mast on the Calton Hill?!“

Well then, what on earth is that enormous mast on the Calton Hill? The answer is that this was a telegraph. No, not an electric or wireless telegraph, but a naval flagstaff for communication with ships in Leith Roads during the period of the French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The word telegraph of course long predates more modern uses and literally means “writing from a distance” and that’s exactly what a systems such as this could do; as and when daylight and the ambient visibility allowed, the mast could communicate by coded messages transmitted by hoisting various combinations of flags and marker balls up the staff.

The telegraph pole is clearly marked on John Ainslie’s 1804 map of the City:

And we can also very clearly see it in an advertising print for one of Robert Barker’s panoramas from 1806 that was exhibited in Leicester Square in London. His first panorama of this view, from 1792, does not show the mast in place.

An earlier print – also in the collection of the city – shows a similar scene to that of George Walker’s painting, however as the Bridewell – Robert Adam’s prison on the lower slopes of the Calton Hill – is missing from this scene it suggests that this is prior to 1795 and therefore that the mast pre-dates the installation of the Admiralty’s signal telegraph chain. The mast is absent in a plan of the city by James Watson and Thomas Brown dated 1793, suggesting it was erected between those dates. A chain of very similar telegraphs had been installed around the Channel Islands in 1792.

This Calton Hill signal post was at the western end of a telegraph chain that stretched between Edinburgh and St. Abbs Head, to forewarn of any French incursions into the Firth of Forth (bear in mind that in 1779, a small American squadron under John Paul Jones had tried just that) and allow the reporting of shipping traffic in and out of the Forth back to the Admiralty in Leith (formally the Commander-in-Chief at Leith and on the Coast of Scotland) . Interception and boarding parties could then be sent out to any unexpected or unknown vessels. This signal chain was apparently constructed in 1801, so would have been an addition to the pre-existing Calton Hill flagstaff. It is likely that the mast was first erected for communicating with ships anchored in the Leith Roads out in the Forth, at this time an important forming-up point for naval convoys.

With thanks to Chris Wright for his assistance in finding a copy of the relevant paper, I have plotted the Forth & East Coast flag telegraph chain onto a map (below). The 8 stations spanned 41 miles of coast from St. Abb’s Head in the east to Calton Hill in the west, for the Admiralty HQ in Leith. Messages that would otherwise take the best part of a day to carry could be transmitted (weather dependent) to and from Edinburgh and Leith in a matter of minutes.

Each station was manned by a lieutenant on half pay, a petty officer or midshipman plus as his deputy and two men. All to have been classed as “unfit for sea service”, meaning they were too old, young, or injured. The structures were hastily constructed and temporary, built largely from timber with canvas for roofing and little remains apart from perimeter walls to keep the sheep out or some levelled platforms for the signal staff and support guys. The wooden huts were painted with a mix of tar, ochre and sand. Life must have been dull, cold and uncomfortable.

For communication purposes, each telegraph was provided with 1 x large red signal flag (18 breadths x 7 yards size), 1 x large blue pennant (5 breaths x 50 yards size) and 4 x hollow canvas signalling balls, painted black (43″ diameter). A system of coded signals used combinations of the red flag, blue pennant and a certain number of balls. For instance the blue pennant plus 3 balls = “Enemy landing to the west“. The below diagram for the Port of Leith flag signals in the 1860s, shows how with just 3 flags and 2 balls, it was possible to unambiguously communicate the numbers 10 – 26 (and the halves in-between). Now make those depth numbers signals in a code book, and you’ve got yourself a telegraphic communication system.

Each station was provided with an inventory that included:

• 163 yards of roofing canvas
• A 30 foot flagstaff
• A 50 foot topmast for the staff
• 100 fathoms of 1.5 inch and 77 fathoms of 2.5 inch rope
• officer’s bath stove
• fire grate for the men’s quarters
• 6 chairs, 2 tables

Four chaldrons of coal (about 5.25 m3), £3 of candles and £1 of stationary were allowed per annum. It wasn’t until 1803 that the Admiralty made an allowance for 1 x cot bed (for the officer) and 3 x hammocks (for the men), and only upon written application. I have also inferred that the officer may not have lived permanently on site as he was given a travel allowance. The illustrations below, made by Royal Engineer Captain William Smith, show the telegraph station at Malin Head in Ireland in 1804. The flagstaffs and cabins would have been similar on the East Coast of Scotland.

Exceptions exist however. The stations at St. Abbs, Dowlaw and North Berwick seem to have been more substantially built from the local stone, perhaps due to their isolation or exposure? Good remains of the stone buildings remain on North Berwick Law above the town.

In case there was any doubt it was a military structure, rather than a shepherd’s bothy, one of the stones has been neatly inscribed with the cipher “G. R.”

And a section of flag staff (quite remarkably, if it’s original) remained in situ during the archaeological site survey in 2018!

I can find almost no mentions of the East Coast telegraph being used in the newspapers. The earliest is in the London Oracle on 26th October 1798, which records a scare that French warships were in the Forth when two friendly Russian warships did not give the correct signals and in consequence “the signal post on the Calton Hill was at work most part of the day“. A decade later in 1808 the Caledonian Mercury reported that the St. Abb’s Head station sent a message to Edinburgh that the damaged merchant ship Cygnet had drifted inshore there. An 1802 aquatint shows that the mast was still in place at that time:

Plans of the city include it up to 1809, but construction of the Nelson Monument from 1807 onwards soon made the flagstaff surplus to requirements – however the below illustration below by John Harden clearly shows the Monument in place where the flagstaff once stood but also shows the flagstaff standing to the east of it. This suggests that the staff was moved to an alternative location while the monument was still under construction.

The Monument was designed to effectively be a 160 foot tall flagstaff in its own right, to act as a signal station, with accommodation for the signallers, the officer in the tower itself and four injured seamen pensioners in the building at its base. It was intended that the duties of the occupants would include hoisting news of British naval victories and celebrating past triumphs on their anniversaries. For the latter purposes, flags bearing the names of these events were to have been provided.

The design of the monument by Robert Burn is said to be inspired by Nelson’s folding telescope. You have to admit that it was a big improvement on the obelisk style from an earlier draft by Alexander Nasmyth that had been rejected as too expensive.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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Which is it? The thread about the name of Wardie Bay; or the thread about the name of Granton Beach?

This thread was originally written and published in July 2023.

Wardie Bay; an increasingly popular little spot of accessible coastline in the north of Edinburgh, where you can dip your toes – or your whole body – in the “bracing” waters of the Forth, and watch the seals and seabirds. Or is it Granton Beach? Let’s see if we can’t find out.

First we must get something straight, whatever this bay and beach is called, it is not a natural bay, it is man made. The sandy beach itself extends all of 150m eastwards from the Granton Eastern Breakwater (construction of which was not completed until about 1860) and the wider bay itself is bookended to the east by the Western Breakwater of Leith Docks, some 1,350m distant (constructed between 1938 and 1942).

Surveying undertaken by the eminent engineers Robert and Alan (his son) Stevenson in the 1830s when planning Granton Harbour shows that at this time, there was no sandy beach at Wardie, it was only rock and gravel (there was, however, sand to the west of where the pier is marked below).

Once we accept this, it means we don’t need to look for a name for this bay that is older than that, because it didn’t exist, it was just the shoreline of the Firth of Forth.

Our two competing names for the bay come from the estates and big houses of Granton and Wardie.

• Granton as a placename goes back to 1478 and a “castle” or tower house existed here. The estate was later split into two farmsteads (Easter Granton (or Royston) and Wester Granton). Under the ownership of Andrew Logan, the castle was replaced by a mansion house, which was called Royston House. This was rebuilt at the end of the 17th centurty by George Mackenzie and in 1739 was purchased by John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, who renamed it Carolina Park after his daughter and had it extended by William Adam. At the end of the 18th century the house was inherited by the Duke of Buccleuch.
• Wardie as a placename is first recorded over 100 years earlier than Granton, in 1336, with various spellings over time such as Warda and Weirdie. The flat plane of land in this area above the shoreline of the Forth back to the Water of Leith was known as Wardie Muir (moor). A castle of this name was built in the 15th or 16th century, which over time evolved into Wardie House. At the end of the 18th century, Wardie House was in the possession of Alexander Boswell (or Boswall) of Blackadder, in Berwickshire. When he died in 1812, he left Wardie to a distant relative, Captain John Donaldson, RN, whose inheritance required he take up the Boswall name.

Granton and Wardie also gave (and still give) their name to the two most prominent intertidal rocks on their respective foreshores, Granton Bush and Wardie Bush.

The boundary between the estates of Granton and Wardie was the rivulet of the Wardie Burn; west of the burn lies Granton, east of it lies Wardie. This also formed the old parish boundary between St. Cuthberts and Cramond. To the east of Wardie, on a boundary defined by what is now Netherby Road, lay the ancient lands of Trinity – part of North Leith parish and so-called because they belonged to Trinity House in Leith. The land ownership plan below was drawn up by Robert Stevenson on behalf of the Duke of Buccleuch in 1836 as part of the harbour scheme, which included a significant new access road to and from Edinburgh (marked red below) that spanned the Wardie Burn and crossed the land of Captain Boswall of Wardie. Interestingly, Stevenson’s first plans for Granton had a much grander pier, wet docks and this roadway was proposed as a railway.

The below map overlays the boundaries of the old Granton, Wardie and Barnton estates on a modern aerial photo. We can see that the boundary between Granton and Wardie, the old line of the Wardie Burn, is approximately in the middle of the current beach, with probably the lion’s share in Granton.

From an administrative point of view, when the Great Reform Act passed in 1832, it defined new parliamentary constituencies. One was created for the Burgh of Leith, which cut through the middle of the Wardie estate, in a straight line between where the Wardie Burn entered the sea and Ferry Road, 400 yards west of Golden Acre. To the west of this, Granton was in Edinburghshire, and to the south of this was the constituency the Burgh of Edinburgh.

The following year, Leith was made a municipal Burgh, and the boundary was pushed 100 feet further west from Granton Road than the parliamentary boundary. Although it still ran through the middle of the old Wardie estate (which was progressively being parcelled up and built on), this now meant that almost the entirety of the foreshore at what would later become Wardie Bay beach was then in Leith’s jurisdiction.

The Edinburgh Municipal Act of 1900 incorporated Granton into Edinburgh (into the No. 8 St. Bernard’s Ward), with the boundary remaining 100 feet west of Granton Road. When the Edinburgh Extension Act of 1920 passed and Edinburgh consumed Leith, the ward boundaries remained the same in Leith, and the old No. 5 North Leith Ward became Edinburgh’s new No. 19 West Leith Ward. Wardie Bay may now have formally been within Edinburgh, but it was still in a Leith ward (as it remained until incorporated into a new shoreline ward called Forth in 2007 when the city moved to a smaller number of larger, multi-member wards).

In news print, Granton Beach appears over a decade before Wardie Bay, but it’s not easy to tell what part of the foreshore this was referring to. Granton Bay never has been used, and Wardie Beach is used earlier on (1837) but only as a one off, and not in a local publication. Wardie Bay is cetainly the name used by the author Joyce Wallace, who wrote a number of excellent books on Edinburgh and Leith local history in the 1990s, including Traditions of Leith and Trinity and Further Traditions of Leith and Trinity.

In 1901 there was a great tragedy at Wardie Bay when the Revenue Cutter Active was driven against the Granton Breakwater in a storm with the loss of 20 of the 23 souls on board. This was widely reported in newspapers across Scotland and the UK, and Wardie Bay was the name used.

In 1987, there was a scheme put forward by Forth Ports, the harbour and navigation authority for the Firth of Forth, to infill the shoreline between the Granton and Leith harbour breakwaters, and the name Wardie Bay was used. You can read more about this ridiculous proposal over on its own thread.

This has all been a very long-winded way to say that I think, on the balance of probabilites, if I was asked to adjudicate on whether it is Wardie Bay or Granton Beach, I would say it is Wardie Bay.

• It is an accepted term in print by local authors, and the most commonly used term in local newspapers
• The most prominent intertidal feature on the beach is Wardie Bush – Granton Bush is a mile to the west
• While the older estate boundaries put much of what is now the beach on the Granton side, the beach and bay have only come into existence as we known them since 1860, by which time the estates were being broken up by feuing, and a new municipal boundary had been set which put almost all of the beach east of the breakwater on the Wardie side.

However, there is really no right or wrong answer here. No authority has ever decreed an official name. The bay itself is a local feature, it’s not defined or recognised on Ordnance Survey maps or marine charts. So you go ahead and call it what you think is best, and don’t let anyone (especially me) tell you otherwise.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

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The thread about the Forth Dam megaproject; why bridge the Firth when you can block it?

Here’s one for you that I bet you’ve probably never heard of: did you know that in 1928 there was a proposal to cross the Firth of Forth by building a dam across it? This will be a short thread, by nature of the dearth of information available, but hopefully a useful record of this bold initiative.

The scheme was the brainchild of Matthew Steele, a Bo’ness-born architect whose work focused on retail and housing, first in an Arts & Crafts and later in the Moderne style, and includes the Hippodrome cinema. In this endeavour he was joined by fellow Bo’nessite John Jeffrey; hotelier and burgh councillor.

This was a time before the Kincardine swing bridge was built (not completed until 1936) and there was much public debate about the best manner and location for a road vehicle crossing of the Forth downstream of Stirling. The Firth had of course been crossed way back in the 1890s by the rail bridge.

Jeffrey and Steele’s proposal was to throw a 7,300 foot long barrage (1.3 miles, 2.2km) across the Firth and lay a roadway along the top of it for vehicular traffic. It would run from just west of Port Edgar on the south shore to a point a quarter of a mile to the west of North Queensferry. You’ll be as totally thrilled as I was to find it to know that there’s a sketch plan!

You’ll notice that the project wasn’t just a dam: in order to maintain navigation along the Forth it was planned to cut a 2,500ft (762m) long channel between Inverkeithing harbour and St. Margaret’s Bay, complete with locks on the scale of the Panama Canal. This latter point was critical as Rosyth was the principal dockyard in Scotland of the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet and was on the upstream side of the dam. The channel would have to be allow passage by the fleet’s largest battleships such as HMS Hood, the 47,000 ton, 860ft long pride of the nation.

It was Steele’s contention that by building the foundations of the dam to the west of the Beamer Rock (where the modern Queensferry Crossing finds its footings) it would be easier and cheaper than forming the base for bridge piers. The promoters put forward a number of claimed benefits for their dam:

The roadway along the dam would drastically shorten the distance for vehicular traffic across the Firth and “fast water buses” were also proposed to work passenger transport: Jeffrey foresaw “his man-made lake becoming a highly popular water playground for the whole of Central Scotland“. He imagined it would be akin to the Swiss lakes – or more realistically the Clyde or Loch Lomond – and be served by pleasure steamers visiting picturesque new coastal villages.

The intrepid pair set about touting their scheme and trying to gain supporters, which started with a letter to The Scotsman on July 7th 1928 and proceeded onto the pages of the West Lothian Courier and Linlithgowshire Gazette. Locally, they found both vocal support and also incredulity. Jeffrey upped the ante – “When is this squandering of public money going to cease?” he demanded, in the Gazette in 1930, referring to the “millions” being spent on the Dole rather than progressing his scheme. But a lukewarm response was received when details of the scheme were sent to the Prince of Wales (heir to the throne and later Edward VIII), whose private secretary politely declined his patronage saying the Prince couldn’t possibly look into every crackpot scheme that crossed his desk. Instead, the secretary forwarded the scheme on to the Secretary of State for Scotland, Godfrey Collins, from whose intray it never appears to have resurfaced. Within a year or so, it was superseded by serious bridge schemes in the Queensferry area.

The war of course then intervened and the Forth wouldn’t get its downstream road bridge until 1964, but it did gets its car ferries between South and North Queensferry in 1934. You can read more about their amusing habits of running aground in this previous thread. Sixty years later, a smaller barrage scheme, but one that would have been environmentally destructive too, was put forward to infill Wardie Bay between Leith and Granton harbours. You can read more about that over on its own thread.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

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These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The historic Edinburgh pub offering well-earned refreshment at end of walk from ancient volcano

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotland-now/historic-edinburgh-pub-offering-well-37022778

Taken this day, 2013 - ready to launch
https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/8728784199

Taking out a skiff at Porty

#Portobello #Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #PortobelloEdinburgh #boat #bateau #FirthOfForth #BlackAndWhitePhotography

The ignominious end of HMS Caledonia: the thread about how the Navy’s longest ship ended up as scrap metal on the Forth seabed

Q. What was the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2?

A. As any respectable naval anorak knows, it was the 47,000t, 860ft long battleship HMS Hood, the “Mighty Hood“, pride of the fleet and largest warship afloat. Right? Or… was it the Bismarck?

No, the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2 was the 56,500t, 956-ft long training ship HMS Caledonia; until 1936 the Cunard-White Star liner RMS Majestic, which until 1922 had been the Hamburg-Amerika liner SS Bismarck. Until 1935, the largest ship in the world

The Bismarck was the 3rd and largest of three Hamburg-Amerika liners built immediately prior to WW1; the others were the Vaterland and Imperator. They were ordered to reclaim dominance and German national pride in the Transatlantic liner stakes from the British Cunard and White Star liners. They were to do this by being both the largest and grandest liners afloat. Bismarck was the last of the trio but before she was laid down, the Hamburg-Amerika line found out that the new Cunard liner Aquitania was to be longer than her, so they hastily rejigged the design to add an extra 6 feet on. They needn’t had bothered, they had made been misinformed and Aquitania actually ended up being 50ft shorter than Bismarck.

It was too late to change the design however and it was too late for her sister Imperator, which had been given the most embarrassingly awful nose job to lengthen her by the vainglorious addition of a massive bronze eagle figurehead which was meant to make her 1ft longer than Aquitania. Fortunately for her appearance this partially fell off during Atlantic storms within a year, and was removed.

Bismarck was launched in June 1914 by a granddaughter of the Iron Chancellor, but this ceremony was jinxed when she fluffed the swinging of the champagne bottle and it only broke on the second attempt: none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped in to give it his best swing. The outbreak of war found her without a purpose, and construction ground to a halt beyond maintenance work. During the war she was stripped of valuable components, wiring and piping and all her brass and copper. The incomplete hulk was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Versailles as reparations for the loss of the White Star liner Britannic (sister of Titanic), which had struck a German mine and sunk in 1916 while serving as a hospital ship. This was the largest ship lost in the war, but although she sank in just 55 minutes, all but 30 souls on board were saved. Her sister Imperator went to Cunard as a replacement for the Lusitania, the ill-fated liner whose sinking had outraged America and helped drag that nation into the war against Germany.

White Star sent representatives and shipyard engineers from Harland & Wolff in Belfast to Hamburg to supervise completion of their new possession. The whole ship needed re-wiring, and a mysterious fire that damaged her during completion and which the British put down to sabotage by the German workers was probably an electrical fault: this would be a recurrent theme. She completed in March 1922 and White Star officers were sent to supervise her trials by officers and men of Hamburg-Amerika line. This was marred by briefly running aground, but after a week she was accepted and handed over. Her German name was painted out and replaced with Majestic.

A White Star crew arrived and sailed her to Southampton, during which time they repainted her funnels into company colours. She arrived exactly 10 years to the day that the Titanic had departed on her ill-fated maiden voyage. Not only the largest in the world, she was arguably the most opulent, designed by the French architect Charles Mewès. Her German builders had trunked the boiler uptakes around the ships sides (rather than through the centre), to allow for huge, uninterrupted interior spaces, and spared no expense on the specification

Despite being a foreigner in a time when ocean liners were a symbol of national prestige, she was made White Star flagship and was the pride of the fleet. Her first official duties were to be inspected by King George V and Queen Mary, before heading for New York. She settled down to a glamorous 1920s career on the Atlantic, but one that was always marred by the occasional spontaneous fire in her electrical system, and growing cracks in her decks (which grew to 100ft long) as a result of the lengthening job.

The Depression hit the Transatlantic liners hard, already struggling from a downturn in migrating passengers, and in White Star’s case, poor corporate management. The Majestic frequently found herself on “booze cruises” from a very dry and thirsty Prohibition-era USA to help pay her huge running costs. But the cracks grew bigger, the electrical fires got more frequent and the finances grew ever worse. Cunard and White Star line merged in 1934 in a government-sponsored deal. The new company had too many liners and the older ones began to be disposed of; Majestic survived the initial chop, but her card was marked.

With the new company flagship Queen Mary under construction, Cunard-White Star made to dispose of the sister ship Berengaria, which was older and more prone to fires, but the larger Majestic had higher running costs so in 1936 was taken out of service instead.

She quietly sailed her last voyage in February that year and disappeared from the schedules without any announcement on her future. In May she was bought by Thomas Ward of Inverkeithing for £115k (c. £6.6m in 2023), the scrapyard where many a liner and battleship ended its days.

Majestic was taken into dock at Southampton to have her funnels and masts lowered to allow her to sneak beneath the Forth Bridge, but there was a snag – the minor matter of fine legal print of the Treaty of Versailles. Bismarck had been handed over as a prize of war as compensation to White Star, but the terms did not allow the new owner to sell her. Instead, the Royal Navy stepped in and took possession, and “gave” Wards 24 old destroyers of equivalent scrap value in return. Everyone was happy. The lawyers were happy. Cunard-White Star got paid by Wards, Wards got the scrap they had paid for and the Royal Navy got what had been – until 6 months previous – the largest ship in the world, for the price of only a few old rusty relics.

The great liner was now taken in for conversion to an enormous training ship, with capacity for 1500 trainee boys and 500 officer apprentices. Her luxurious fittings – apart from the swimming pool – were stripped out, and the vast interior converted to spartan classrooms. Where once her passengers slept in the most luxurious cabins afloat, the new occupants would sling hammocks from the roof beams in time-honoured Royal Navy tradition. In April 1937 she made her last sea voyage, to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth.

On arrival, she commissioned as HMS Caledonia, named after the Victorian training ship that had once served on the Forth under that name. Her job was to train the boys and young men who would fill the ranks of the expanding Royal Navy in the run up to the inevitable war. By the end of the year there were 1,000 trainees aboard.

The new Caledonia only had an expected lifespan of 4 years, she was to plug the gaps until permanent shore facilities could take over; but she didn’t even make this. On the outbreak of war there was a panic that the Luftwaffe would target her for a revenge sinking. This was not without reason and the first air raids over the United Kingdom during the war soon followed over the Forth with the Royal Navy and Rosyth being the target. And so the trainee boys onboard were packed off to safety in the Isle of Man, the officer apprentices were sent ashore at Rosyth, and the great ship was floated out into the Forth and pumped full of water so she would settle on the sea bed at low tide (therefore couldn’t be “sunk”), to await her fate, or another use.

However the proud old ship had other ideas. Just 26 days after war was declared and a full 17 days before the Luftwaffe arrived over the Forth, she set herself on fire and burnt out, settling on to the bed of the Firth. Her shonky electrical system had the last laugh. With the country now at war with Germany, the niceties of previous treaties could be overlooked, and she was sold to Wards of Inverkeithing – again, for mining as a strategic reserve of scrap iron. She was demolished in situ from 1940-43.

In July 1943, what remained of the hull was patched up and floated around the corner to Inverkeithing, for beaching and final break-up by Wards. This was completed in 1944, her name transferred to a shore station at Oban.

After the war, the name was relocated back to Rosyth, where it was a shore training establishment until 1985. It was rehabilitated again at Rosyth in 1996, where it remains to this day, the Navy’s HQ in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The HMS Caledonia which was once the liner RMS Majestic remains the longest ship to have ever commissioned into the Royal Navy, a full 24ft longer than the modern Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers. With her loss in 1939, the battleship HMS Hood would regain her crown as the largest ship in the Navy. In a sardonic twist of fate, Hood would be sunk in May 1941 by a German ship named Bismarck – with great loss of life.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.