Over 2,000 Scottish historical letters were stolen. They were found in Canada

Catherine Zhu · CBC Radio

· Posted: Mar 27, 2025 2:08 PM EDT | Last Updated: 9 hours ago

After 3 decades, thousands of humanities documents have been returned to their rightful location astatine the National Records of Scotland. 

Alan Borthwick, an archivist astatine the National Records of Scotland who played a cardinal relation successful bringing them back, expressed a "sense of satisfaction" arsenic they're present acceptable to beryllium utilized by a caller procreation of historians. 

The mislaid letters, which were returned connected March 25, include family, property and concern correspondence, immoderate dating each the mode backmost to the 1600s.

And to Borthwick's surprise, they had been taken.

How they went missing

The National Records of Scotland is tasked with preserving and maintaining the country's nationalist records, ensuring that they're accessible for research, acquisition and ineligible purposes. 

But successful 1994, an unsettling find was made. 

A full of 200 items from their postulation surfaced astatine an auction successful London. It prompted an investigation, and Borthwick from the National Records of Scotland was tasked to ace the case. 

"My workfellow ... was astonished to spot a batch of letters which astir apt came from collections which we held successful our office, truthful we were capable to retrieve the lot," Borthwick told As It Happens big Nil Köksal.

"When it was brought backmost to our bureau successful Edinburgh, I was asked if I could person a look through."

As Borthwick sifted done the items, helium matched their notation numbers to their genitor postulation and was astounded — the items were stolen from the National Records of Scotland.

"That was erstwhile alarm bells truly began to ring," said Borthwick. 

But it wasn't hard to place the alleged culprit — adjacent though whoever had taken the documents had gone to large lengths to screen up their theft by removing notation numbers and replacing items with forgeries. 

Through cross-referencing with the nationalist archive's grounds of users that day each the mode backmost to 1847, Borthwick zeroed successful connected 1 man: David Stirling Macmillan. 

Born successful 1925 successful Scotland, Macmillan had worked astatine the archive for conscionable a year starting successful 1949, though helium continued to person entree to the archive agelong after. 

That entree was revoked successful 1980 aft helium was caught removing a papers from the archive. 

At the time, the unit believed it was an isolated incident. But arsenic Borthwick would aboriginal discover, the scale, he'd yet travel to realize, was acold greater. 

The crippled thickens 

Over a decennary aboriginal successful 2012, Borthwick was contacted by a researcher who had seen a notation successful an online catalogue astatine Trent University successful Peterborough, Ont., to an point that seemed to person Scottish origins. 

Upon visiting Trent University, Borthwick said helium was shocked. Around 2,000 items that had been allegedly stolen by Macmillan from the National Records of Scotland and were being housed successful Canada. 

In fact, determination were 3,100 stolen items found. Among them, astir 500 documents were stolen from different institutions crossed the U.K. Around 500 items belong to collections held by backstage owners and 100 items person an chartless origin. 

It turns retired that Macmillan, who had moved to Canada successful 1968, had taught past astatine the schoolhouse for 20 years. He died successful 1987, and the documents were given to the university. 

Borthwick says the now-retired archivist astatine the schoolhouse was "utterly astonished." 

"They couldn't person imagined that. There's nary crushed for them to ideate that … these documents that prof Macmillan bequeathed to the archives, could person been stolen," said Borthwick. 

Searching for clues 

Though it's not imaginable to inquire Macmillan, who was not charged with a crime, about his motive, Borthwick says that the items themselves, a ample cache of idiosyncratic letters, person clued him in. 

"We began to recognize that astir likely, prof Macmillan's abiding interest, was postal history, successful different words, postmarks connected letters," said Borthwick. 

The letters, mostly correspondence betwixt Scottish radical to those surviving overseas, were marked with distinctive and antithetic postmarks.

And Borthwick speculates that it mightiness person been an guiltless thought that led to the deed. 

"We think, perhaps, that prof Macmillan thought, 'Oh, that's a truly nice, absorbing looking postmark, I privation I could person that successful my collection.'"