The 30-year quest to catch a national records thief

The following is a summary of a short story published today on the BBC website by David Wallace Lockhart, BBC Scotland correspondent.

Dr Alan Borthwick has spent 30 years uncovering how thousands of historical documents from Scotland’s National Records (NRS) ended up in Canada. The person responsible was Prof. David Stirling Macmillan, a historian and archivist with a fascination for postage stamps and postmarks. His removals began in 1949 and continued until 1980, when he was caught taking a document. At the time, staff assumed it was an isolated incident, but Macmillan had systematically taken letters, often mundane but featuring unique seals and postmarks.

After moving to Canada in 1968, Macmillan’s collection was later found in Trent University’s archives. In 2012, Dr Borthwick identified thousands of these documents as belonging to NRS. His painstaking efforts led to their return and reintegration into Scotland’s archives.

NRS chief Alison Byrne described the scale of the loss as “unprecedented.” Despite the breach of trust, Borthwick takes satisfaction in restoring Scotland’s historical records. Today, the archives are protected with CCTV, ensuring such removals cannot happen again. While the stolen documents are now safe, Borthwick reflects on the time spent solving this mystery.

Read the complete article here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8v7rr8gj2o

Photo: A letter from a Scot living in Madeira, stolen from the NRS archive by Prof Macmillan.
[Photo credit: NRS, BBC]

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