Multiple Edinburgh deaths on the same day - 2nd April 1916

[Pete_Wood]

I am trying to find the names of all civilians killed in a Zeppelin raid on Scotland on the 2nd/3rd April 1916.

I know in which streets the bombs fell, and how many casualties there were.

What I don't yet know, are the names of the victims.

One bomb fell on a tenement in Marshall Street, Edinburgh, and killed 6 people and injured 7.

Can someone please tell me how I can use SP to find out the names of the casualties, when I don't have any surnames....??

[LesleyB]

Hi Pete
Good chance you'd find a few column inches on this in the Scotsman Archives I'd have thought.

They're at http://archive.scotsman.com/ and will be free from 12pm on 30th Nov- 11.59am on 7th Dec. as a St Andrews Day special.

This would, I should think, provide you with names which would then help on SP...
Best wishes
Lesley

[Pete_Wood]

Hi Lesley

I certainly timed my question at the right time, because I was just about to throw some money at The Scotsman - in the desperate hope it might reveal one name (or more). So my sincere thanks for the tip-off.

However, I confess I have my doubts that The Scotsman would have named the casualties. That's because the Defence Of The Realm Act (D.O.R.A.) forbade such reporting, in case the information could be used by the enemy.

The Times, very occasionally gave out the odd name (for example, there was nothing to stop Mr Smith putting a notice in the obituary column to say that his wife had been killed in a recent raid) of someone killed in the London region. But it is more common for a casualty to be just a number along with their age (I have only recently managed to get the partial addresses for some of the victims from the recently released GHQ Secret Bulletins. It really was hushed up).

So, as a plan B, and because I have never used the SP site before, is there any hints and tips I could use that might give me the names of the victims....??

Supposing I am able to identify one casualty (from The Scotsman, or another source), will I then be able to find the other deaths easily - because they are in chronological order...??

My thanks in advance

Pete

[LesleyB]

Hi Pete
This is not the type of search I've ever done - I usually at least have a surname to work with!!

I would think that your first step should maybe be to establish what district of Edinburgh the street(s) in question fall into (it may straddle more than one area)- this should limit the "possibles" on SP quite substantially. (I'll go have a look for Marshall Street in the 1881 and see what area it falls into) - Then limit your search to the year in which the accident happened, (unless the incident happened in December in which case you'd be wise to take in the following year too, but it didn't, it was April so you should be OK). I would think you might still get quite a lot of results back, especially if you are covering two years. When I've seen accidents before - 2 separate incidents of drownings of several people as a result of the one incident, the deceased have tended to be mentioned on the one page, so I would hope that if you manage to find one victim, you may find three on the one page with any luck, especially if they all lived nearby each other, then you'd be able to tell from the GROS codes which the following and preceding pages were within your search results. However, it might be possible that any visitors, milkmen, tradesmen etc not living in the area at the time would have been registered in their own area, I suppose.

for example, there was nothing to stop Mr Smith putting a notice in the obituary column to say that his wife had been killed in a recent raid

Also remember the Scotsman has a "hatch, match, dispatch" column which may be useful. Even if you just have a surname it would, I suspect, help hugely.

Best of luck with it - let us know how it goes. Someone else my be able to come up with another approach to this one.
Best wishes
Lesley

[AndrewP]

Another method that may be worth trying is to contact the Scottish National War Memorial through their website. There is an "auto responder" link to follow to ask a question of their historian. As I recall from a visit to the Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle, if my memory serves me correctly, they keep a book of Scottish civilians killed by enemy action as well as the many regimental books of those who died in service.

It would be worth asking if they have a record of those civillians killed in the Zeppelin raid of April 1916.

http://www.snwm.org/

An offer of a donation may help.

I terms of Registration Districts, I would expect Marshall Street to be in either 685/4 St Giles or 685/5 Newington.

All the best,

Andrew Paterson

[sporran]

Hello Pete,


unfortunately, the search mechanisms on ScotlandsPeople and on the GROS system require a surname. If you can visit New Register House (NRH) in Edinburgh, there are fiches available that will have the deaths for each district in chronological order of reporting. If the people died on or soon after the day of the raid, then a search of fiches for each district should produce the answers that you require. If you can not visit NRH, there are researchers available to work on your behalf.

If your research is for a book or other publication, you have nothing to lose by contacting GROS and asking for advice on how to proceed.


Regards,

John

[Pete_Wood]

As I feared, The Scotsman did not reveal the names of any of the victims.

After a few hours of searching, I was at the point of giving up. However, I then had a lateral thought. I know the areas, and even addresses, where the bombs fell. So I have just started looking at the obituary columns, finding the name of anyone who died in the 'right area' on the same day.

I started with Leith as I guessed it is a smaller area, in terms of population (compared to Edinburgh). I struck gold immediately, and can now reveal the first known casualty of the Zeppelin raid:

David Dickson Henderson Robb (aged 12 months) of Bonnington Road, Leith. According to the death register he was struck "by a piece of bomb" in the left shoulder, but I am having trouble making out the rest of the writing as yet.

In case anyone is interested, the bomb that killed this baby actually hit the nearby railway siding, and a shell fragment hit the window frame of their house, and was deflected - striking the child while he lay sleeping in his crib (at midnight on the 2nd April 1916).

I just wanted to thank all those who have offered so much advice, and been so friendly; one found, and 9 to go.....

Regards

Pete
[/img]

[DavidWW]

Pete

Well done!

I was going down the same route myself shortly after midday on Wed, but the site then became overloaded.

I thought that I'd found at least one "Now the truth can be told" type article some months, even a couple of years after the event, but haven't tried again since.

The full text in the Cause of Death etc. column for wee David is "Punctuaring (?) wound left shoulder (piece of bomb) (Seen after death) As certified by Jas Butler MB Surgeon of Police".

David

[Pete_Wood]

David, my thanks to you also. I am amazed at how you were able to read the script (I had shown a dozen work colleagues a copy, and none of us could make out half of it).

Once again I am blown away that someone should not only give free advice, but even look on my behalf. What a nice bunch of people you all are!!

Add Cora Edmund Bell, aged 5 years, who died when a bomb landed on the tenement in which she lived, at 69 St Leonard's Hill. Her death was caused by "effects of bomb explosion" which shattered the stairwell and severely damaged the whole house. There were two people injured here, also.

In the same district, of Newington, Wilhelmina Henderson, 74, died of a heart attack - attributed to an air raid, certified by the same doctor (Harvey Littlejohn) who inspected Cora Bell. This was some 8 hours or more after the airships had departed Scotland, though. No female adults were officially recorded as having died as a result of the Scottish raids, so this lady's death is, I believe, quite historic; the only woman to be killed as a result of enemy fire on Scotland in the Great War........??

It now occurs to me that you experts may be able to help me pinpoint other districts which were affected by the German bombs:

16 Marshall Street (districts identified thanks) 5 men and 1 child killed
Commercial Street (near Sandport Street) 1 man killed
Bonnington Road (identified thanks) I infant killed - see above
Graham Street (near Lauriston Place) 1 man subsequently died of injuries
69 St Leonard's Hill (identified) 1 infant, aged 5 years, killed - see above
Grassmarket (St George district?) by White Hart Hotel; 1 man later died of injuries

Pete

[DavidWW]

David, my thanks to you also. I am amazed at how you were able to read the script (I had shown a dozen work colleagues a copy, and none of us could make out half of it).

Nae prob!!

20 years experience comes into it, not just in terms of reading the handwriting as such, but also in terms of knowing what standard information and words are likely to appear in various locations.

This one wasn't at all difficult, apart from the spelling of "punctuaring" ....

Once again I am blown away that someone should not only give free advice, but even look on my behalf. What a nice bunch of people you all are!!

That's a rather nice compliment, thanks, as we aim - I'm a member of the Admin Group of this site, - not only to be an informative site but a very friendly site, moderated where necessary with as light a hand as possible, - only 3 or 4 folk have had to be excluded from TS so far in our first year of existence, - but, above all, completely and totally avoiding the unnecessary flaming, trolling, etc., etc., that is common on other DGs, both moderated and unmoderated.

In this particular context I have to declare two interests, - in terms of firstly being an avid collector of such unusual records for my lectures in N America, and Australasia, - it's the unusual ones that really interest the audiences , plus the fact that, whisper it quietly, - the aspect really annoys one of the people excluded from TS, - I'm also a member of the User Group of ScotlandsPeople, - and along with that goes priviledged access to SP for beta testing but also personal use ...... and I see no conflict with using that access in situations such as this ............... especially when it most often leads to folk buying even more records from SP which they otherwise might not have had the experience to realise were just waiting for them to locate.......

Add Cora Edmund Bell, aged 5 years, who died when a bomb landed on the tenement in which she lived, at 69 St Leonard's Hill. Her death was caused by "effects of bomb explosion" which shattered the stairwell and severely damaged the whole house. There were two people injured here, also.

In the same district, of Newington, Wilhelmina Henderson, 74, died of a heart attack - attributed to an air raid, certified by the same doctor (Harvey Littlejohn) who inspected Cora Bell. This was some 8 hours or more after the airships had departed Scotland, though. No female adults were officially recorded as having died as a result of the Scottish raids, so this lady's death is, I believe, quite historic; the only woman to be killed as a result of enemy fire on Scotland in the Great War........??

Now there's a thought.

BTW, earlier, I'd meant to suggest that you have a Google on SS Norge to see another situation involving an unusual group of deaths registered in Scotland.

A genealogical magazine in the USA has commissioned me to write an article with the working title "They Didn't Quite Make It" on the wider subject of the many emigrants who perished when crossing the Atlantic, plus the many others, mainly Irish, who first managed to get across to Liverpool and Glasgow, with the initial intention of getting across to the USA, but either liked it in Liverpool and Glasgow, or couldn't raise the finance to travel further ............

It now occurs to me that you experts may be able to help me pinpoint other districts which were affected by the German bombs:

16 Marshall Street (districts identified thanks) 5 men and 1 child killed
Commercial Street (near Sandport Street) 1 man killed
Bonnington Road (identified thanks) I infant killed - see above
Graham Street (near Lauriston Place) 1 man subsequently died of injuries
69 St Leonard's Hill (identified) 1 infant, aged 5 years, killed - see above
Grassmarket (St George district?) by White Hart Hotel; 1 man later died of injuries

Pete

Being from the West of Scotland, I'll happily leave Embra to those more expert than I am

David