Another posting in the occasional series of 1913 diary entries
A little fine sun lying on the valley of the hay shed. Cold + dull all day: no frost. Roads a little dryer. N.E. [wind] not quite so piercing as yesterday. Was not out of town + did my visits cycling. Birds have ceased singing owing no doubt to the cold. Stewart1 had his tonsils removed by Stiles2 today. Nancy3 + he come home tomorrow. Suffragettes have blown up Villa at Walton Heath in which Lloyd George was going to live4.
1 Stewart Muir ‘Little Stewart’ Roberts (1908-2003), Dr Muir’s grandson
2 Sir Harold Jalland Stiles (1863-1946), KBE FRCS FRCSE FRSE, MB, ChB (Edinburgh) 1885, British surgeon; he held various posts at Edinburgh and in 1919 was to succeed Prof Francis Mitchell Caird (with whom Dr Muir was familiar) as Regius Professor of Clinic Surgery at Edinburgh University
3 Agnes Amelia ‘Nancy’ Roberts née Muir (1878-1948), Dr Muir’s second daughter
4 Surrey History Centre holds the police report (SHC ref CC98/11/3) into this incident in which “At 6.10am on 19 February 1913, a bomb exploded at the weekend retreat that was being built for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, next to Walton Heath golf course in Walton-on-the-Hill, causing damage estimated at £500 (nearly £55,000 in today’s money).”; the report includes witness statements relating to the bombing, a detailed account of the detainment of Emmeline Pankhurst following her arrest and information “on the nature of the bomb which was located in a back bedroom and comprised of ‘French nails mixed with the powder’.” [Suffragettes in Surrey: Walton-on-the-Hill’s Explosive Past
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/16, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1913]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 