The mystery surrounding the image of a north-east lighthouse keeper has been solved after one of his distant relatives read the story in the Press and Journal.
Staff at Fraserburgh’s Museum of Scottish Lighthouses were left scratching their heads when an image of an unknown keeper cropped up in their collection earlier this year.
The picture of the bearded lighthouse man came with no details about who he was or where he was from.
But after an appeal in the Press and Journal for information, one of his descendants has unraveled the secret.
The museum had narrowed the search down to a handful of names, but staff were surprised to discover that the man in the picture was none of their guesses.
His relative – who they did not want to be identified – provided the name David Milne Scott.
Last night, the museum’s collection manager, Michael Strachan, said it was good to finally have a name for the mysterious man.
“The person who brought the original picture to the museum many years ago saw the article in the Press and Journal and recognised their distant relative by marriage,” he said.
“It is fantastic that the owner of the image saw it and the Press and Journal has been able to give us a name.
“I was hoping it would be Francis Harvey, but equally thrilled that we now know what his long-serving assistant Mr Scott looked like”.
Scott was born in Arbroath in 1836 and entered lighthouse service as an assistant keeper in November 1863, aged 27.
He served at Kyleakin, Lismore and Stornoway before arriving at Kinnaird Head in Fraserburgh in 1870.
He was eventually promoted to be a fully-fledged lighthouse keeper and continued to serve at stations across the country until 1895, when he retired.
The announcement of who one of the lighthouse’s former keepers is comes just weeks before the museum begins to celebrate its own history by switching on Kinnaird Head once more.
The event, on March 30, will invite keepers from the Northern Lighthouse Board to man the Fraserburgh beacon for a 24-hour period.
