Scope and Contents The memoirs were written by John M'Kie for his son, Dr Norman J M'Kie, and cover the period from his early life to about 1870. The son of a tenant farmer in Kirkcudbrightshire, he took up engineering and worked in Dundee, Liverpool and Crewe before joining the navy in 1847. He served in HMS Rattler, suppressing the West African slave trade, and in the royal yacht 'Victoria and Albert', before being appointed Chief Engineer in HMS Hawke on the Irish coastguard service in 1855. He later served...