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May 22 in Scottish History

Today in 1859 saw the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Edinburgh.

Conan Doyle invented the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, and is said to have based the relationship between Holmes and his sidekick, Dr Watson, on Plato's Socrates and his disciples, Cervantes' Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and James Boswell's conversations with Dr Samuel Johnson. In later life Conan Doyle became a vocal supporter of spiritualism, writing many books on the subject.

On this day in 1915, 227 people are killed and 246 more are injured in a rail crash at Quintinshill, near Gretna Green. The accident happened when a troop train carrying almost 500 soldiers of the Royal Scots en route to Gallipoli crashed into a stationary goods train. The express train from London subsequently ran straight into the wreckage. The Royal Scots suffered the vast majority of casualties, with 215 killed, as fire ripped through the wooden train, helped by the gas lamps used for lighting. The crash accounted for 42 per cent of the battalion's casualties for the entire war and it remains Britain's worst rail disaster.

On 22nd May, 1968 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland voted in favour of women ministers. After many years of discussion the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland voted by a large majority to admit women to the ministry. Later in the year, four women were accepted as candidates for the ministry by the Presbyteries of Edinburgh, Irvine, and Kilmarnock.