# 1939 in Scotland

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Events from the year 1939 in Scotland.

## Incumbents

* 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.
* 1 May – RAF Lossiemouth formally opens.
* 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. On 7 September, survivors are visited by John F. Kennedy, son of the US Ambassador and future 35th President of the United States.
* 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 people.
** 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 on board.
* 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

* 7 March – Duncan Macmillan, art historian
* 16 April – Donald MacCormick, broadcast journalist (died 2009)
* 2 May – Mairi Hedderwick, illustrator
* 4 June – George Reid, politician, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament 2003-2007
* 8 June – Gordon Reid, actor (died 2003 in London)
* 9 June - Eric Fernie, historian
* 11 June – Jackie Stewart, racing driver
* 16 July – Don Cameron, balloonist
* July – Wes Magee, poet and children's author (died 2021)
* 23 July – Donald Macgregor, marathon runner (died 2020)
* 29 September – Jim Baxter, international footballer (died 2001)
* 19 October – David Clark, Labour politician
* 31 October – Trish Godman, Labour politician (died 2019)
* 18 November – Ian McCulloch, actor
* Dugald Cameron, industrial designer
* The Mulgray Twins, Helen and Morna Mulgray, crime novelists

## 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)
* 13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, physician, rugby union international and Deputy Lieutenant for Orkney (born 1856)
* 21 September – George Washington Browne, architect (born 1853)
* Robert Bryden, artist and sculptor (born 1865)

## The arts

* 18 May – Cosmo Cinema opens in Glasgow as an art film theatre.
* Erik Chisholm's sonata An Riobhan Dearg is composed.
* Ian Niall's novel Wigtown Ploughman: Part of His Life is published under the author's real name, John McNeillie.