With another successful year behind us and a host of varied topics and speakers for 2025/26 our membership currently stands at 88 (including 7 new members), a slight decline from last year at 96. Visitor numbers total 46 this season cf. 58 last year. Here follows a round-up of the season’s 9 talks and other events.
In Feb. 2025 Society member Prof. Charles Munn kicked off with his talk on “Rev. Dr. Henry Duncan: anti-slavery campaigner, geologist, educationalist and newspaper founder” – an astonishing polymath, Minister of his rural Dumfriesshire parish for over 40 years and founder of the Savings Bank Movement in Scotland enabling working people to be independent of charity. Highly regarded by Andrew Carnegie he deserves to be more widely known.
Bruce Jamieson, Linlithgow historian, delivered a very comprehensive talk on the “Disaster at Darien” in March 2025. After seven lean years of famine in the late 17C the Scots were desperate to secure a reliable trade route to India and the Orient overland through Panama to the Pacific coast. More than half the nation’s wealth was sunk into a failed venture in the most inhospitable of environments resulting in 2000 dead and which led, inevitably, to the Union of 1707. Even today more people have walked on the moon than have crossed the Panama isthmus on foot.
Joe Fitzpatrick returned to give us an “Update on the East Lomond Dig” in April 2025. Since Joe’s first visit to us in Jan. 2018 the site continues to reveal more treasures and improve knowledge in the Roman and post-Roman period in Eastern Scotland. East Lomond is now believed to be the most southerly Royal Pictish hillfort in Scotland with continuous occupation for 700 years. Pictish finds are rare but the discovery of a doorknob spear butt cast in bronze turned out to be a dream discovery and featured on BBC series 12 of “Digging for Britain” episode 4 broadcast in January 2025.
Prior to our summer break we concluded with a very different topic with Richard Wemyss on “The Manx Beauty Project” in May 2025. This ring net drifter was one of four boats commissioned by the Isle of Man Government in 1937 to encourage more young men to return to their fishing fleet and was one of the last boats to be built in Cellardyke in Fife. After 40 years in service she ended up in Birkenhead and in 2020 was transported overland back to Cellardyke for a £1.3m on-going project rebuild. With community partnerships in place the boat is the inspiration for a number of projects offering many volunteering and work experience opportunities.
At start of 25/26 season in Sept. 2025 Bob Young gave us a personal and moving narrative of his “Life as a Miner”. A local lad who left school before turning 15 to go down the pit in order to save up to buy a motorbike! After working worldwide as a steel erector he returned to Dunfermline in 1984 at onset of Miners’ Strike and became NUM Branch Chair at Comrie Colliery. With a few revealing tales of that period he then spent 30 years as a Fife Councillor and continues to be involved in the voluntary sector for mining communities.
Standing in at short notice Bruce Jamieson returned with a highly entertaining and most expressive, yet rigorously researched (and at times terrifying!) talk on “The Resurrectionists”, a topic most apt for October 2025 and the stories behind Scotland’s body snatchers. Grave robbing by trophy hunters has been a problem since Egyptian times but it was only with the expansion of the medical schools and interest in public dissection particularly in Edinburgh that the “requirement” for bodies soared, well above the availability of criminal cadavers. And finally a myth scotched: Burke and Hare were never resurrectionists, but plain murderers. It was their heinous but lucrative crimes which raised awareness of the need for bodies and the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832 (until then it was not illegal to steal a corpse, only the objects buried with it) – Britain was one of the first nations in Europe to do so.
Society member Dave Dykes returned with a sobering talk on “Architecture and Conservation work of Commonwealth War Graves Commission” following on from his earlier history of the organisation and a most fitting topic for Nov. 2025. After WWI the principal architects Sir Edwin Lutyens, Herbert Baker and Reginald Blomfield were faced with the impossible task of giving some sense of beauty, dignity and solidity to the horrors of war and came up with simple clean lines of a Stone of Remembrance (an altar block with the memorable Kipling inscription of “Their Names Liveth for Evermore”) to represent those of all faiths and none; a Cross of Sacrifice and 1.1m headstones marking a known grave and which could include a personal inscription from a family. The huge tablet memorials of the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot represent those still missing. Sir Hubert Worthington, Philip Hepworth and Sir Edward Maule followed after WWII introducing new ideas such as a Reflecting Pool in Cassino, Italy. The original three simple principles still stand today – that all should be commemorated with a name on a headstone or memorial (if missing); all memorials remain permanent (and are now considered historical artefacts) and all are presented in a uniform style regardless of rank or social standing. All these monuments commemorating 1.7m Commonwealth dead from 2 World Wars in 150 countries and territories now face both natural (climate change) and man-made challenges, even wilful vandalism resulting in expensive renovation projects.
Our dynamic duo and quiz masters par excellence, Society Treasurer Elaine Campbell and committee member Jean Barclay were once more on the case for our Quiz and Social Evening in December full of quizzing, light-hearted entertainment and festive fayre. Once again they gave us a singular and memorable evening of fun and laughter with a night to remember to start off the festive season. The 3-part quiz – Who Am I?; Who Said That? and a boggles test (deciphering the names of Scottish towns and cities from 2 pictorial clues and involving some lateral thinking!) resulted in a tie-break between The Plebs and The Old Codgers. Most graciously The Plebs (with 3 committee members on board) conceded to George Robertson’s and Harry Dunn’s team with a friendly handshake! All team final scores were very close.
A raconteur of the first degree Donald Smith wrapped up the 25/26 season in passionate storytelling style in January 2026 with his talk on “Our Storied Firth” drawing on the drama of the old Celtic myths and legends of the Scottish landscape surrounding the river Forth and three more recent, local historical figures, notably Queen/Saint Margaret, Walter Bower, Abbot of Inchcolm and Robert Henryson, Dunfermline schoolteacher and poet and their importance in the stories that shape our nation today.
2025 also saw two outings offered to Society members. A repeat visit by popular request to the Dunfermline library archives to view a new selection of historical material (from ½ million gems available) courtesy of Society member Sharron McColl, over a February weekend. What an unbelievable treasure trove of local archive material cared for by Sharron’s boundless knowledge and enthusiasm for all things Dunfermline related. In June a small group headed off by minibus to the World Heritage Site of New Lanark to immerse themselves in the cotton milling industry of the late 18th Century. In 1800 Robert Owen, son-in-law to original owner David Dale assumed management of the mills and village and set about transforming the lives of the mill workers by introducing social, moral, educational and workplace reforms. As weather was glorious some of us embarked on the trek to view the Falls of Clyde, a scenic woodland walk with spectacular waterfalls. The day was rounded off nicely with afternoon tea in the New Lanark Hotel. Full details of the trip available on the website.
We marked the 10th anniversary of the Society website dunfermlinehistsoc.org.uk with the posting of the 100th article. Anything you may wish to know about Dunfermline, its people and places can be found there so if ever a question pops into your mind concerning local history our website should be your first port of call. And links to other local societies, local events and national history bodies can widen your interest.
Lindsey Fowell, Chair, DHS
February 2026