Landships II

Oh, tip-top info. Thank you. It's very gratifying when another enthusiast adds to the sum of knowledge.

Further study seems to indicate that he was born in San Francisco on Nov 11, 1881 (The Royal Aero Club Aviators' Certificates, 1910-1950. He also designed, built, and flew a monoplane before the War. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macfie_monoplane)

According to Canadian Passenger Lists 1865-1935, he sailed to Nova Scotia at some point, and Canada Ocean Arrivals (Form 30A) 1919-24 has a Robert Francis Macfie landing in Quebec.

That's all I can do on this budget.

P.S. I don't know what a viglink is.

When I was researching the Macfie article many years ago, I found various leads on Macfie and his family which I didn't pursue for various reasons.

There's an archive on the family at the University of Glasgow, a catalogue of which I downloaded. The Introduction says:

DC120
MacFie Family
Sugar refiners, Greenock and Liverpool

This large collection covers both the business and personal affairs of the MacFie family, sugar refiners of Greenock, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Liverpool, over at least five generations and 200 years.  It mainly concerns the families of William MacFie of Greenock (died 1854) and John MacFie of Edinburgh (died 1852) and their descendants, but covers many other MacFies and relations by marriage extending very widely as the years go on and including branches of the family in Canada, Sweden, America, Australia, Hawaii and the West Indies.  It deals with events both local and national.  Members of the family were connected with the church, medicine, local and national politics, the services, county life, and many business concerns.  Latterly (1900 onwards) the family tree is not so clear and a number of persons mentioned cannot be tied up to their exact parentage, but were probably children and grandchildren of earlier mentioned MacFies.  Many aspects of life, social and artistic, are dealt with and often reflect Victorian sentimentality (as in poetry composed after death).  Many industrial and scientific innovations are mentioned and the family played their part in promoting these things.  Overall the papers trace the history and development of sugar refining in this country, dealing with developments in the refining process, the constant battle with the government over duty and foreign competition, and the conditions of the workers.

Somewhat tantalising are these listed items:

Box 33

/1
1914-1919 Envelope of items on invention of the tank in which R F MacFie [son of R A MacFie, Sandwich Islands, later West Indies] was involved.  Many felt he did not get true credit

/16
1911-1915 Letters business and personal, including 1 small group of letters refers to sale of Dreghorn Castle.  Like Redford, it was bought by the government and is now Dreghorn Camp/Rifle Range.  The other group of letters were all written by R A MacFie (of Sandwich Islands) now in West Indies.  Despite financial ups and downs, he seems quite happy.  He refers to the death of William MacFie [eldest son of Robert (Greenock)].  His son, R F MacFie (Bertie) was something of an inventor.  He was interested in the new aeronautics and invented the ‘Continuous Bagasse Diffusion Process’;  he was also involved in the invention of the tank and many people felt he should have got more credit than he did for this.  Letters also interesting on West Indies politics.  David Johnstone MacFie and his wife died.  Several young MacFies doing their bit in the war;  at least one fatality

I also have a downloaded scanned page from the 1901 Census with him on it, listed as Age last birthday 19; Born in the USA (British subject).

Glanfield (Devil's Chariots) notes that apart from spending 1912 and 1913 on plantations (presumably connected with the family business) in the West Indies, which is where he saw Holt tractors in action, Macfie also spent six months in Western Canada before the War studying powered ploughing for a New York group planning to build tractors. This included an appraisal of Holts.