Awful Earthquake in Japan1
Robert Currie Rockville died today2
Went into Edinburgh by the 9.14 via Peebles + got along to Rutland Square in time for meeting of J.A.S.C. + R.P.S.C.3 We adjourned at 1.20 [?] for lunch which a party of us got at the Caledonian.4 I had to leave the meeting at 3.40 as I wanted to buy a date stamp + catch the 4.20. Dined at Levenlea5 with John Roberts, his daughter in law + her daughter6: Nellie Harrison + her daughter7 + Clive Craig Brown8 with whom I walked home. A little drizzle at night, otherwise a fairly good day.
1 関東大地震, the Great Kantō earthquake was of magnitude 7.9 Mw and was followed by fires and at least one firestorm. The disaster killed a number of individuals now quoted as 105,385 (immediately published numbers were higher). It was accompanied by the mass murder of foreigners, a precursor of Japanese atrocities during the invasion of Manchuria, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the invasion of French Indochina and across the Pacific Theatre of War after 7 December 1941. The history of the Great Kantō killings has been subject to revisionist writing including, notably, by J Mark Ramseyer of Harvard Law School [for commentary see for example Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. “Un-remembering the Massacre: How Japan’s “History Wars” are Challenging Research Integrity Domestically and Abroad.” The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, October 25, 2021, https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2021/10/25/un-remembering-the-massacre-how-japans-history-wars-are-challenging-research-integrity-domestically-and-abroad/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2023.]
2 Robert Currie junior (about 1847-1923), woollen hosiery manufacturer, died 6 September 1923, death certified by D Charteris Graham M.B., Ch.B. The son of Robert Currie, hosiery manufacturer, and Mary Little and married to Mary Murray, Robert lived at Rockville, Selkirk. Though he was known as ‘junior’ he was actually the fourth of five generations of the Currie family at Selkirk with the given name Robert.
3 Two British Medical Association committees.
4 Assume the Caledonian Station Hotel, Edinburgh.
5 The Harrison family was at Levenlea, Selkirk (Leavenlea in 1921 Census) around this time. The family comprised John Harrison junior (1886-1981), tweed manufacturer, Beatrice Annie de Fraine (1884-1962) whom John had married in 1917 at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and a daughter Beatrice de Fraine Harrison (1920-1998), born Selkirk..
6 Assume Sir John Tonkin Roberts (1845-1934), Eulalie Violet Roberts née Farquhar (1873-1931), widow of George Roberts (1872-1903) and Mary Eulalie Roberts (1899-1995), her daughter, all over from New Zealand in 1923 (though one cannot readily dismiss the idea that this refers to another daughter-in-law Catherine Emily ‘Emma’ Roberts née Downes (1884-1949) and her daughter, Dorothy Violet Roberts, later MacMillan (1909-).
7 Nellie Harrison and her daughter cannot be readily identified.
8 Clive Craig Brown (1876-1942), tweed manufacturer, sometime of Woodburn, son of Thomas Craig Brown and his successor in business.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/26, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1923]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 