Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Josselyn, John
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
John Josselyn was one of a group of Glasgow University students who, on Christmas Eve 1951, stole the Stone of Scone or Stone of Destiny, from Westminster Abbey in London. The Stone was later returned and the students were not charged. They were members of the Scottish Covenant Association, a group striving for reform and self government in Scotland. Many Scottish nationalists believed that the Stone, which had been brought to London by Edward 1, rightfully belonged in Scotland. In 1986, a London newspaper reported that Josselyn claimed on his death bed that the Stone returned to the Abbey was a replica and the real Stone was still hidden in Scotland. William Fillmore lived in or near Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1955, and was a member of a Scottish cultural group there. He appears to have written to Josselyn and other Scottish Nationalists offering support and proposing to write about the incident.