Important North Britons

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1688 James Edward Stuart, "the Old Pretender", Anglo-Scottish prince, was born.
James was the son of King James VII, and father of Charles Edward Stuart, "the Young Pretender", popularly known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie". James made repeated attempts to regain the throne for the Stuarts, failing to land in 1708 and being forced to concede defeat after a few weeks in 1715. In 1745 the Jacobite uprising, led by his son, succeeded in getting as far south as Derby, but its eventual defeat at Culloden signalled the end of Jacobite ambitions.

1858: Scottish botanist, Robert Brown, died.
Brown had sailed on many early missions to Australia, and his work with the flora and fauna of the new continent had made him eminently respected in his field, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Linnean Society. Brown is also famous for his death, as it led to a free date at the Linnean Society which was filled by Charles Darwin's lecture on the theory of evolution.
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1560: Mary of Guise, Regent of Scotland, died.
Mary was the wife of King James V and the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary replaced Arran as regent during her daughter's infancy and arranged her betrothal to the French dauphin. Her main aim was the union of her native France and Scotland, under French leadership. This, coupled with her unswerving support for Cardinal Beaton's repressive policies toward Scottish Protestants, made her a hugely unpopular figure within the country.

1939: Formula One champion, Jackie Stewart, was born in Dumbartonshire.
The winner of 27 Grand Prix and World Champion three times, Stewart remains one of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport.
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1843: Sir David Gill, Scottish astronomer, was born.
Gill was noted for his measurements of solar and stellar parallaxes, which accurately revealed the distances of the Sun and other stars to Earth. He was also a pioneer in the use of photography to map the heavens.

2001: Thomas Wilson, the Scottish composer, died.
His works include the three-act opera, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, which was commissioned by Scottish Opera. The libretto, by John Currie, is based upon James Hogg's 1825 novel of the same name.
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1831: James Clerk Maxwell was born in Edinburgh.

Nicknamed "daftie" by his fellow pupils at Edinburgh Academy, he went on to predict the existence of radio waves in 1865, and is considered by many to be the father of the science of electronics.
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1746: Colin MacLaurin, the Scottish mathematician, died.
MacLaurin was a child prodigy who attained the position of professor of mathematics by the age of 19, and a close friend and associate of Isaac Newton. His masterwork is Organic Geometry, with the Description of the Universal Linear Curves.

1946: Scottish inventor, John Logie Baird, died.
Baird is remembered as the inventor of television. Born in Helensburgh, even as a child his talents were already apparent, creating a telephone exchange system, connecting his house with four neighbouring ones and, using a petrol generator in the garden, setting up a lighting system for the house - the first in Helensburgh to have electric light.
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1844 Thomas Campbell, the Scottish poet, died.
Author of The Pleasures of Hope, Campbell helped found the University of London for students who were excluded from Oxford and Cambridge for religious or financial reasons.

1996: Sir Fitzroy MacLean, the Scottish soldier, diplomat, politician and author, died.
Prior to the outbreak of war, MacLean served as a diplomat in Moscow, but it is his service during the war for which he is most noted. MacLean was a founder member of the SAS, serving in North Africa before being sent into occupied Yugoslavia as the British representative to the Communist partisans. After the war he served as an MP, achieving ministerial rank as Undersecretary for War in the mid-1950s.
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1807: The Rev. John Skinner, poet, theologion and Episcopalian minister of Longside in Buchan, died.
His song, Tullochgorum, was complemented by Robert Burns in a letter sent to Skinner as, "the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw".

SRD comments: Interesting use of the word 'Scotch' by the master of the North British dialect.

1948: Henry McLeish, Scottish Labour politician, was born.
McLeish began his working life as a footballer for East Fife, but soon entered the political arena, serving from 1987 as MP for Central Fife. His career reached its zenith with his appointment as First Minister of the Scottish Executive, succeeding Donald Dewar. He was forced to resign, however, after a financial scandal at his constituency.

1971: John, Lord Reith, the Scottish broadcasting executive, died.
Reith is regarded as the founding father of public service broadcasting in Britain. He served as the first General Manager of the British Broadcasting Company between 1922-27, and as the first Director-General of the BBC from 1927-38. Reith was the inspiration behind using radio as an educational medium and as a tool for providing the nation, and world, with regular impartial news, "making the nation as one man", as he described it.
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1566: King James VI was born.
The only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lord Darnley, James acceded to the throne at the age of one, after his mother was forced to abdicate. He was tutored by George Buchanan, a firm Protestant and one of the sharpest minds in Scotland. James was a master diplomat and courted favour in England until he emerged as the main challenger to inherit the English crown on Elizabeth's death. After gaining the English kingdom, James left Edinburgh and only returned once to Scotland.

1861: Earl Haig was born in Edinburgh.
Haig spent a distinguished career in the military, rising through the ranks of the 7th Hussars until eventually becoming C-in-C of British forces in 1915.
Haig's tactics during the First World War have been called into question as being unimaginative and wasteful of soldiers' lives, and Haig himself cited his own despair at the casualties lost as the main reason for his work in founding the British Legion and instituting the Poppy Day appeal.

1937: J M Barrie, the Scottish playwright and novelist, died.
Although a prolific writer, Barrie is principally remembered today for his classic children's story, Peter Pan. Other notable Barrie works include the prose work A Window in Thrums and the play The Admirable Crichton.
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1723: Dr. Adam Ferguson, Scottish historian and philosopher, was born.

As Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, he was a proponent of so-called "common-sense" philosophy, a precursor to modern sociology. He used the lessons of history to inform his moral thinking, and his later works especially are thought to have influenced philosophers such as Marx and Hegel. Ferguson is also famous by association, as it was at his house in 1787 that a chance meeting occurred between two Scots literary giants, Robert Burns and a young Walter Scott.
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1946: Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Scottish Conservative politician, was born. Rifkind was Foreign Secretary from 1995-97 in the John Major administration. He also held the posts of Defence Minister and Secretary of State for Scotland.
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1832: Sir James Hall, Scottish geologist, died.
Founder of geochemistry, Hall demonstrated that if igneous rocks are allowed to cool slowly, they form crystalline rather than glassy rock. He also showed that limestone, when heated under pressure, does not decompose but becomes marble.
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1777: The birth of Admiral Sir John Ross, Scottish Polar explorer.

In 1818 he went in search of the Northwest Passage but turned back after exploring Baffin Bay. Financed by Sir Felix Booth, he commanded a second search expedition (1829-33), when he located the north magnetic pole on Boothia Peninsula, now called Prince of Wales Island.
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1897: Margaret Oliphant, Scottish novelist, died.
Born in East Lothian in 1828, Margaret spent most of her life living in Liverpool and Glasgow. Her novels are often subversive, using sharp wit to expose the hypocrisy and injustices of Victorian society. The mundane existence of women of the time, and the difficulties of relations within families, were themes she tackled with delicacy, humour and intelligence.

1936: The birth of Roy Williamson, Scottish folk musician and songwriter. A founder member of the folk group, "The Corries", for whom he wrote the song which has since become Scotland's unofficial National Anthem, "Flower of Scotland".
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1824: The birth of William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, eminent Scottish physicist.
He devised the Kelvin, or Absolute, scale of temperature. Thomson brought together disparate areas of physics - heat, thermodynamics, mechanics, hydrodynamics, magnetism, and electricity - and thus played a principal role in the final synthesis of 19th-century science.

His success as a synthesizer of theories about energy places him in the same position in 19th-century physics as Sir Isaac Newton has in 17th-century physics or Albert Einstein in 20th-century physics.
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1857: Daniel MacMillan, Scottish publisher, died.
Born on the Isle of Arran, he was co-founder with his brother Alexander of the successful publishing house, MacMillan. His grandson became the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.

1937: Robin Hall, Scottish folk singer and musician, was born.
Hall achieved national fame in partnership with fellow Scot, Jimmie MacGregor, on the BBC TV show, Tonight. His hits included The Mingulay Boat Song and Ye Cannae Shove Yer Grannie Aff a Bus.
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