I imagine the first question anyone will ask is what is a column called "Scottish Flotsam". I guess we will have to begin with what is "flotsam". Among the definitions of the word are "things washed ashore" or "miscellaneous trifles". Well, we believe you can find some great treasure on the ocean shore. But -- you will never know what you will find or its value. So we decided that is what this column is - flotsam. We wanted a place to put things that didn't fit anywhere else and might be of interest. Each item could be a column itself and might be some day but for now it will be the flotsam, which washes our way.

The earliest development was the steam-tug Charlotte Dundas, designed by William Symington (1763-1831), and launched on the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1802. Henry Bell (1767-1830) developed the first practical steamboat for passenger traffic in 1812 and this was soon followed by others as the relatively calm waters of the Firth of Clyde proved ideal for steamboats. One of the earliest iron boats was the Vulcan (1818), while the Fairie Queen (1831) was a pioneering iron steamer. In 1835 half the tonnage of steamships built in Britain originated on the Clyde- though otherwise the area was still unimportant relative to overall output elsewhere.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the Clyde had overtaken other centres in steam, developed an important marine engineering industry, and begun to finance major shipping companies. Robert Napier (1791-1876) was one of several prominent shipbuilding entrepreneurs of the period. Even then, wooden sailing ships were still more important than iron steamships. Port Glasgow and Greenock produced the former, while most of the latter were built in Glasgow and Dumbarton. Clippers, like Cutty Sark, remained viable on long routes, where steamers proved costly.

The subsequent development of Scottish shipbuilding - and especially the Clyde yards was owed to the increased efficiency of boilers, the development of the triple expansion engine, the steam-turbine, and the use of steeI in construction. A phase of expansion occurred in the 1880s when steel began to displace iron, just as iron had wood. Many of the great shipbuilding yards and related marine engineering workshops aided by relatively cheap and highly skilled labour came to prominence in the period before World War I. Shipping fleets expanded internationally and naval rearmament brought even more work to the Clyde, with Scottish shipbuilding output reaching a peak of 2.6 million tons, 60 per cent of UK output, in the period 1919-23. Some of the shipyard workers had a reputation for militancy and became associated with the activities of Red Clydeside.

After the war other shipbuilding regions were worse hit than Clydeside and indeed Scotland improved its share of UK output as well a introducing new methods of propulsion in the diesel engine. The Clyde produced 60 per cent of total passenger liner tonnage 1921 -38 including the Queen Mary (1934) and Queen Elizabeth (1939). Again warships provided work during a period of declining international trade, though rationalization took its inevitable toll as well, badly affecting iron and steel.

Shipbuilding experienced mixed fortunes after World War II, a period characterized at first by unprecedented prosperity then after 1960 by a collapse that took the industry to the brink of disastrous decline. The latter was owed partly to lack of investment in modernization, indecisive management, and interunion demarcation disputes, and partly to over whelming advantages in price and delivery dates offered by European and Japanese competitors. The work-in at Upper Clyde Shipbuilding (1971) was one notable resistance to the inevitable demise of the yards, some of which were given a stay of execution during the seventies by oil-related or warship construction.
MOSS, M. S. and HUME J R., Workshop of the British Empire: Engineering and Shipbuilding in the West of Scotland, Heinemann, 1977 - Clyde Shipbuilding from Batsford, 1975.

Now lets look at some specific dates:

1319 - September 7
English arm began a fierce onslaught against Berwick by land and sea. The strongly fortified town was under command of Walter the Steward.

1937 - September 12
Scots jockey Willie Carson fractured his skull when his mount fell in the Yorkshire Oaks.

1937 - September 18
Campaign to stamp out gambling schools in Edinburgh had a vigorous opening when a raid on a South Side housing scheme netted 30 arrests.

1588 - September 27
Crew of a wrecked Spanish Armada galleon took refuge on remote Fair Isle, halfway between Orkney and Shetland.

Source - Scotching the Myths by Jim Hewiston can be found in the History Book Section of Scottish Radiance.

It is time to stop combing the library but we can not quit without some quotes from Quotable Scots another great History bookshelf resident. Let's see what quotes we can find.