1950 removal of the Stone of Scone

On 25 December 1950, four Scottish students from the University of Glasgow (Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart[1]) removed the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in London and took it back to Scotland.

[4] It seems likely that the escapade was based on the fictional account of a plot by Scottish Nationalists to liberate the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Cathedral and to return it to Scotland, as told in Compton Mackenzie's novel The North Wind of Love Bk.1, published six years earlier in 1944.

[citation needed] The Stone of Scone, the ancient specific stone upon which Scottish monarchs had been crowned, was taken from Scone near Perth, Scotland, by troops of King Edward I of England (Longshanks) in 1296 during the Scottish Wars of Independence as a spoil of war, kept in Westminster Abbey in London and fitted into King Edward's Chair.

[6] In 1950, Ian Hamilton, a student at the University of Glasgow, approached Gavin Vernon with a plan to steal the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in London and return it to Scotland.

[6][8] In December 1950, a few days before Christmas, the four students from Glasgow drove to London in two Ford Anglias, a journey which took them eighteen hours.

[6] On arrival in London they had a brief meeting at a Lyons Corner House and decided to make an immediate attempt at removing the Stone from the Abbey.

[2] The following day (Christmas Eve), Vernon and Stuart returned to Westminster Abbey and learned some information on the watchmen's shifts.

[2] Matheson left her car, containing the small piece of the Stone, with a friend in the Midlands, and like Vernon made her way back to Scotland by train.

[8] The raid was completely unexpected and gave the cause of Scottish devolution and nationalism a brief sense of prominence in the public conscience throughout the country.