Dunbar

Coordinates: 56°00′10″N 2°31′01″W / 56.002725°N 2.516901°W / 56.002725; -2.516901

Dunbar (Scots [dʌnˈbaɾ]) is a town in East Lothian on the southeast coast of Scotland, approximately 28 miles (45 km) east of Edinburgh and 28 miles (45 km) from the English Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Dunbar is a former Royal Burgh and gave its name to an ecclesiastical and civil parish. The parish extends around 7½ miles east to west and is 3½ miles deep at greatest extent (12 x 5.5 kilometres) or 11¼ square miles (c. 3000 hectares) and contains the villages of West Barns, Belhaven, East Barns (abandoned) and several hamlets and farms.

Its strategic position gave rise to a history full of incident and strife but Dunbar has become a quiet dormitory town popular with workers in nearby Edinburgh, who find it an affordable alternative to the capital itself. Until the 1960s the population of the town was little more than 3,500.

The town is served by Dunbar railway station. Dunbar is home to the Dunbar Lifeboat Station, the second oldest RNLI station in Scotland.

Dunbar (ship)

The Dunbar was a full-rigged ship that was wrecked near the entrance to Sydney Harbour, Australia in 1857 with the loss of 121 lives.

The Dunbar was launched on 30 November 1853 for London shipowner Duncan Dunbar and entered the passenger and cargo trade between London and Sydney early the following year. She was one of a number of large sailing ships that began trading to Australia as a result of the Australian gold rushes.

On the night of 20 August 1857, the ship approached the entrance to Sydney Harbour from the south, but heavy rain and a strong gale made navigating difficult. The ship's captain, James Green, either erroneously believing he had already passed the harbour's southern headland or mistaking a smaller break in the coastline known as The Gap for the port's entrance, drove the ship onto rocks. The force of the gale caused the Dunbar to break up. Crew member James Johnson was thrown against the cliffs from the impetus of the collision and managed to scramble to safety, however he remained undiscovered for two days. The remainder of the passengers and crew were drowned. A day of public mourning was declared. The remains of the bodies of twenty-two victims were recovered and interred in a single large tomb in Camperdown Cemetery in Newtown. Several other victims have individual monuments.

Dunbar (surname)

Dunbar is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Earls of Dunbar

Other