Scots  Firsts (cont.)... 

     THE first commercially succesful spinning reel for fishing was patented in 1884 by Peter Malloch of Perth.

It was immensely popular at that time, as it made fishing much easier for beginners, and could be made for use in any type of fishing, from Salmon to Sharks.

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  ...Fingerprinting   was discovered by Scotsman Henry Faulds from Ayrshire. He was working as a doctor in a hospital in Tokyo when he noticed the unique character of fingerprints. He suggested this as a way to catch criminals, in a letter to a scientific journal -Nature - published on October 28th 1880.

Doctor Faulds tried to interest the Police Commissioners in his discovery, but failed. In his native land, he is neither recognised nor honoured, but he was so well thought of in Japan that he was offered the post of Personal Physician to the Crown Prince (which he refused), and is commemorated there by a statue 

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 ...The first US Store Santa Claus was James Edgar from Edinburgh. He owned the Boston Store in Brockton, Massachusetts and, from 1890, he promoted Christmas custom by strolling round his store dressed as Santa Claus, talking to the children.

This was a great success, and it wasn't long before every store in America had its Christmas Santa.

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...Who invented the electric light?                                 

It was James Bowman Lindsay (1799-1862). Born in Carmyllie, near Arbroath, Lindsay was a visionary and pioneer in the field of electricity. Although from a poor farming family, they sent him to St. Andrews University.

In 1835 he demonstrated constant electric light, whereby he could "read a book at a distance of one and a half foot", beating both Edison and Swann, who are credited with inventing the light-bulb, by decades. Regrettably, he seems to have done little to establish his claim or to develop the device,

He was also the first to demonstrate wireless telegraphy through water. He is buried in Dundee's Western Cemetery.

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 ...The Lee Enfield Rifle was invented by a Hawick lad, one James Paris Lee (1831-1904). The family emigrated to Canada, where James worked in his fathers' jewellery store - in a Canadian frontier town where guns made up a large part of the business. 

In 1850, he opened his own business at Wallaceburg (named after Scottish Patriot, William Wallace) and by 1862 had patented his first rifle, a single-shot breech loader. It took him till 1878 to invent the famous rifle with a box magazine, capable of firing 30 rounds per minute - the rifle which became standard issue for the US and British armies

From 1888 the rifle was produced in the town of Enfield, near London, UK - whence derived the second part of its name..

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