1971 in Scotland

← 1970 1969 1968 1967 1966 1971 in Scotland → 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976
Centuries:	18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
See also:	List of years in Scotland Timeline of Scottish history 1971 in: The UK • Wales • Ireland • Elsewhere Scottish football: 1970–71 • 1971–72 1971 in Scottish television

Events from the year 1971 in Scotland.

Incumbents

Further information: Politics of Scotland and Order of precedence in Scotland

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Gordon Campbell

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Norman Wylie
• Solicitor General for Scotland – David Brand

Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Clyde
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Grant
• Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord Birsay

Events

• 2 January – 1971 Ibrox disaster: a stairway crush at the Rangers vs. Celtic football match at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow kills 66 and leaves many more injured.[1]
• 10 March – 1971 Scottish soldiers' killings: three young off-duty Royal Highland Fusiliers are lured from a bar in Belfast and shot by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
• 23 May – "The Unknown Bairn": The drowned body of a young boy is found washed up onshore at Tayport; he is never identified.[2]
• 25 May – production begins at the Invergordon aluminium works.
• 15 June – Upper Clyde Shipbuilders enters liquidation.[3]
• 2 July
  • Royal Scots Dragoon Guards formed as the senior Scottish regiment of the British Army at Holyrood, Edinburgh, by amalgamation of the Royal Scots Greys and 3rd Carabiniers.
  • Erskine Bridge opened over the River Clyde.
• 30 July – Upper Clyde Shipbuilders workers begin to take control of the shipyards in a work-in under the leadership of Jimmy Reid.[4]
• c. August – Kyle of Tongue Bridge and causeway opened, replacing a ferry.
• 16 September – Stirling and Falkirk by-election: Labour retains the seat but the Scottish National Party takes second place with a surge of 20% in their support.
• 21 October – Clarkston explosion: a gas explosion in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire kills at least twenty people.
• 22 November – Cairngorm Plateau Disaster: five children and one adult die on the Cairngorm Plateau.[5]
• 2 December – last resident families leave the island of Scarp.[6]
• Expansion of Erskine as a planned community begins.
• Spey Bridge at Aviemore opened.
• Tom Farmer opens the first Kwik Fit car servicing centre, in Edinburgh.

Births

• 21 January – Alan McManus, snooker player
• 23 March
  • Kate Dickie, actress
  • Gail Porter, television presenter and model
• 27 March – David Coulthard, racing driver
• 31 March – Ewan McGregor, actor
• 1 April – Karen Dunbar, comedian
• 5 April – Charles Cumming, espionage novelist
• 18 April – David Tennant, actor
• 31 July – Craig MacLean, track cyclist
• 19 August – Paul McGrillen, footballer (suicide 2009)
• 30 August – Julian Smith, Conservative politician
• 6 October – Brian Conaghan, young adult fiction writer
• 7 October – Aasmah Mir, journalist and presenter
• 8 October – Michelle Mone, entrepreneur
• 13 November – Alberto Costa, Conservative politician

Deaths

• 16 June – John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, broadcasting executive (born 1889)
• 25 June – John Boyd Orr, physician and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (born 1880)
• 28 August – Edith Hughes, architect (born 1888)
• 12 December
  • Torrance Gillick, Rangers F.C. winger (born 1915)
  • Alan Morton, Rangers outside left (born 1893)
• 22 December – D. Alan Stevenson, lighthouse engineer and philatelist (born 1891)

The arts

• 26 March – BBC Scotland television begins a serialisation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song, starring Vivien Heilbron.
• 18 November – Stewart Conn's play The Burning, concerning King James VI of Scotland, premieres.
• Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond's political thriller Scotch on the Rocks, concerning a terrorist group fighting for Scottish independence in the near future, is published by Collins.
• English composer Peter Maxwell Davies settles in Orkney, initially on Hoy.

See also

• 1971 in Northern Ireland

References

1. "1971: Sixty-six die in Scottish football disaster". BBC News. 2 January 1971. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
2. "Tayport remembers 'The Unknown Bairn' 40 years after his body was found on beach". The Courier. Dundee. 23 May 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
3. "Provisional liquidator is appointed for Upper Clyde Shipbuilders". The Times (58200). London. 16 June 1971. p. 18.
4. Murray, Ian (31 July 1971). "Workers seize control of shipyard on the Clyde". The Times (58238). London. p. 1.
5. "1971: Six dead in Scottish mountain tragedy". BBC News. 22 November 1971. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
6. "The Lost Islands". Stornoway: Comhairle nan Eilean Siar. 29 August 2013. Archived from the original on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 19 May 2014.