1917 in Scotland explained

Events from the year 1917 in Scotland.

Incumbents

3 January – 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 – Stornoway Gazette first published.
29 January – Royal Navy steam-powered submarine sinks on trial in the Gare Loch with the loss of 32 men; 48 are rescued.^[3]
7 February – the Clyde-built Atlantic liner, 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 April - 16 May – Battle of Arras on the Western Front (World War I) - 44 Scottish battalions advance alongside seven Canadian Scottish battalions.
1 May – 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 – First branch of the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes founded in Longniddry.^[5]
9 July – 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 – Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning becomes the first pilot to land his aircraft on a ship^[7] when he lands his Sopwith Pup on in Scapa Flow but is killed five days later during another landing on the ship.
23 August – start of lockout at Pullars dyeing works in Perth.^[8]
October – 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 – Strathmore meteorite falls in Perthshire.^[9]
The Great Channel in the Inner Moray Firth is dredged.

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

17 March – Hippolyte Blanc, architect, best known for his church buildings in the Gothic revival style (born 1844)
13 May – Benjamin Blyth II, civil engineer (born 1849)
22 October – William Hole, English artist, illustrator, etcher and engraver, known for his industrial, historical and biblical scenes (born 1846 in Salisbury)
1 December – George Henry Tatham Paton, army captain, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross, mortally wounded in action in France (born 1895)
27 December – 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 – 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 – 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.

Book: Mitchell . James . The Scottish Question . 12 June 2014 . OUP Oxford . 978-0-19-100236-6 . 64 . en.
Web site: UK train accidents in which passengers were killed 1825-1924. Duncan. MacLeod. 2006-08-14. PureCollector. 2017-12-06.
Web site: Notable Dates in History. The Flag in the Wind. The Scots Independent. 2014-07-15. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140523225830/http://www.scotsindependent.org/dates1-g.htm. 2014-05-23.
Book: Whitehouse, Arch. The Zeppelin Fighters. New York. Ace Books. 1966. 183–184.
Book: Cohen . Susan . THE WOMEN'S INSTITUTE . 2011 . Oxford . 978-0-74781-046-9 . 9.
News: Research puts Vanguard loss at 843. The Orcadian. Brian. Flett. 2002-07-11. 2013-05-19. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20101027092800/http://www.orcadian.co.uk/features/articles/vanguard.htm. 2010-10-27.
http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.3919 HMS Furious 1917.
Web site: Pullars of Perth. Perthshire Diary. 1917-09-19. 2014-03-21.
Web site: The Strathmore Meteorite. Perth & Kinross Council. 2013-08-05. 2014-08-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20150924073952/http://www.pkc.gov.uk/article/6498/The-Strathmore-Meteorite. 24 September 2015. dead. dmy-all.
News: Glasgow's forgotten war artist Fred Farrell. 24 May 2014. The Herald. Glasgow. 2023-08-30.