Firth of Forth Defences in the 20th Century

The collection includes Public Record Office references, 1879-1956; correspondence of B.A. Stenhouse and Major D. Rollo (Retired), H.Q. Royal Artillery, Woolwich, 1979-1987, relating to research on coastal defence, in addition to miscellaneous correspondence 1976-1990; material relating to batteries and forts, including Forth Artillery Defences 1880-1980; papers relating to the defence of islands; newspaper cuttings; material on attacks and disasters; aerial photographs, and camp and group photographs; and, photographs of ships, armoured trains, and forts and batteries. There is also a plan chest drawer of photographs, maps and plans, including group photographs of the Forth Heavy Brigade and OTC, 1933-1935, camp photographs at Kincraig, 1949, and maps and plans of installations and batteries at Carlingnose, North Queensferry, and Cromarty.

Bruce Alexander Stenhouse was born 15 September 1911 in Sheerness, Kent. He attended preparatory schools in Plymouth and Gibraltar, locations presumably determined by his father's service in the Royal Navy, and then between 1920 and 1930 he attended Edinburgh Academy. During the Second World War he served with the 257 Coast Battery, Royal Artillery, in East Lothian, but he also served in North Africa and Italy. In 1950 he became Registrar at Edinburgh Academy, retiring in 1976. Prior to his retiral he had been toying with the idea of compiling a history of the defence of the coast of Scotland from early times. He set about building up a mass of Public Record Office references from the Admiralty, the Committee for Imperial Defence, and the War Office, and he had sounded out various ex-Forth Coast Gunners and other likely sources for inputs towards the project. Stenhouse died in Edinburgh on 25 April 1991. Stenhouse's research was presented to by his widow in 1996.

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Handlist, H61