1917 in Scotland

Events from the year 1917 in Scotland.

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Incumbents

3 January â Ratho rail crash in which North British Railway H class locomotive 874 Dunedin in charge of the Edinburgh to Glasgow express train is in collision with a light engine at Queensferry Junction, leaving 12 people dead and 46 seriously injured. The cause is found to be inadequate signalling procedures.^[2]
5 January â Stornoway Gazette first published.
29 January â Royal Navy steam-powered submarine HMS K13 sinks on trial in the Gare Loch with the loss of 32 men; 48 are rescued.^[3]
7 February â the Clyde-built Atlantic liner SS California (1907), homeward bound for Glasgow from New York, is torpedoed and sunk by SM U-85 approaching Ireland. 41 are killed but around 162 survivors return to Glasgow.^[3]
9 Aprilâ16 May â Battle of Arras on the Western Front (World War I) â 44 Scottish battalions advance alongside seven Canadian Scottish battalions.
1 May â Imperial German Navy Zeppelins L 43 and L 45 conduct reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, above the Firth of Forth and Aberdeen, respectively.^[4]
26 June â First branch of the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes founded in Longniddry.^[5]
9 July â HMS Vanguard is blown apart by an internal explosion at her moorings in Scapa Flow, Orkney, killing an estimated 843 crew with no survivors.^[6]

2 August â Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning becomes the first pilot to land his aircraft on a ship^[7] when he lands his Sopwith Pup on HMS Furious in Scapa Flow but is killed five days later during another landing on the ship.
23 August â start of lockout at Pullars dyeing works in Perth.^[8]
October â first North British Railway C Class steam locomotives are allocated for loan to the Royal Engineers' Railway Operating Division on the Western Front.
3 December â Strathmore meteorite falls in Perthshire.^[9]
The Great Channel in the Inner Moray Firth is dredged.

27 February â George Mitchell, musician, best known for devising The Black and White Minstrel Show (died 2002 in England)
15 May â Anna Macleod, biochemist, world's first female professor of brewing and biochemistry (died 2004)
18 May â James Donald, actor (died 1993 in England)
10 June â Ruari McLean, typographic designer (died 2006)
14 August â Donald MacLeod, Seaforth Highlanders pipe major, composer and bagpipe instructor (died 1982)
26 September â Phillip Clancey, leading authority on the ornithology of South Africa (died 2001 in South Africa)
16 October â Murray MacLehose, Governor of Hong Kong (died 2000)
14 December â Alberto Morrocco, artist and teacher (died 1998)
31 December â John Fox Watson, footballer (Fulham, Real Madrid, Crystal Palace) (died 1976 in Southend-on-Sea)

17 March â Hippolyte Blanc, architect, best known for his church buildings in the Gothic Revival style (born 1844)
13 May â Benjamin Blyth II, civil engineer (born 1849)
22 October â William Hole, English artist, illustrator, etcher and engraver, known for his industrial, historical and biblical scenes (born 1846 in Salisbury)
1 December â George Henry Tatham Paton, army captain, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross, mortally wounded in action in France (born 1895)
27 December â George Diamandy, Romanian revolutionary socialist politician, social scientist, dramatist, journalist, diplomat, archaeologist and landowner, died and buried at sea off Shetland (born 1867 in Romania)

17 August â one of English literature's most important and famous meetings takes place when Wilfred Owen introduces himself to fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh.
November â Glasgow watercolourist Frederick Farrell (who was discharged from army service as a sapper a year earlier on health grounds) serves as a war artist on the Western Front; uniquely sponsored by the city of his birth, the only British city to sponsor a painter.^[10]
Joseph Lee (who is made a prisoner of war later this year) publishes the poetry collection Work-a-Day Warriors.
Ewart Alan Mackintosh (who is killed on 23 November in the Battle of Cambrai) publishes A Highland Regiment and Other Poems.
Doric dialect poet and soldier Charles Murray publishes The Sough o' War.