This weekly Scottish history document discusses several important events from March 8-14 including the first publication of the Oor Wullie comic strip on March 8, 1936 and the formation of the Scottish Football Association on March 13, 1873. It also summarizes the life of Maria Gordon, a Scottish scientist and politician born in 1864 who was the first woman to earn a doctorate from the University of Munich and stood as a Liberal Party MP candidate. Finally, it discusses how some Scottish people were impacted by or involved with the Holocaust, such as missionary Jane Haining who died at Auschwitz in 1944.

1. Quick
Scottish
History
Issue 3 8 March – 14 March
This week in Scottish history…
8 March 1936 – First publication of the Oor Wullie comic strip
9 March 1776 – Publication of ‘The wealth of nations’ by Adam Smith
10 March 560 – Death of St Kessog, said to be Scotland's first patron saint
11 March 1932 – birth in Kilmarnock of Binkie Stuart, a child film star
12 March 1820 –Death of Alexander Mackenzie, an explorer in Canada
13 March 1873 – formation of the Scottish Football Association
14 March 1952 – first TV signals are broadcast in Scotland
A weekly guide to
Scotland’s past with
@mrmarrhistory
Loch Ness is famous for its monster. But what is the deepest loch in Scotland?
Last week’s answer: Ben Macdui is Scotland (and Britain’s) second highest mountain
The life
of …
Maria
Gordon
Scotland and the horrors of Auschwitz
The horrors of the Holocaust are well known; millions of people (Jews, Poles, disabled people, gay people and
others) who were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Auschwitz is arguably the most famous of the concentration camps where these massacres took place. Some
Scottish people had their own roles in these events.
Jane Haining was a Scottish missionary. She worked in Budapest, Hungary running a boarding house for Jewish
and Christian girls. Haining chose to stay in Hungary even after World War Two started to continue looking after
the girls. Eventually she was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz, where she died in 1944.
Another Scot who died in Auschwitz was John Gordon Fletcher. Born in Dundee in 1892, he was a soldier in
World War One and stayed in France after the war, marrying a French woman. Fletcher changed his name to
Jean and continued to live in France, working in an aircraft factory. For reasons that are unclear he was
arrested in 1942 and sent to Auschwitz, where he died in 1942.
Following the war, some people who been inmates at Auschwitz came to Scotland to rebuild their lives. This
includes Judith Rosenberg who died in 2020, the last of Scotland’s Auschwitz (and Holocaust) survivors.
To suggest topics get in touch via Twitter: @mrmarrhistory #quickscottishhistory
Weekly
quiz
Maria Gordon was a Scottish scientist and politician, born in Aberdeenshire in 1864. She
attended the University of London and completed a degree in geology, botany and
zoology in 1890. After this, Gordon moved to Germany and was the first woman to be
awarded a doctorate from the University of Munich. Her studies focused on the
Dolomites, a mountain range in the Italian Alps. She was also a supporter of women’s
rights and stood as an MP candidate for the Liberal Party. Gordon died in 1939.