The Scottish Ancestry of Ian Fleming

(researched by Stuart Reid of www.scottishroots.com)

Many biographies of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, have been published, the emphasis being on his war-time service and subsequent career as an author.  Less well known is his Scottish connection.  Ian Fleming's father, Valentine, was of Scots origin and this may have led indirectly to James Bond being blessed with a Scottish background.

Born in Newport-on-Tay  in north-east Fife in 1882, Valentine Fleming was the son of Robert Fleming who became a successful banker and ultimately took  his wife and young  family to live in  London.   Already well advanced on this career path by the time of his marriage in 1881, aged  36, Robert was then described as the secretary of an investment company and in present-day terminology, would be considered as upwardly mobile, having moved across the river Tay from his native Dundee to the more salubrious and affluent area of Newport.  

Newport  mushroomed in the nineteenth century from a rural village to a fashionable small town with an address desirable for those who made their money in the city but who preferred to live some distance from the dirt and grime of the industrial area.   With the advent of railway travel and particularly, the building of a railway bridge across the river,Newport became  an attractive proposition to many Dundee businessmen.  

The first such bridge unfortunately became infamous when during a ferocious storm in 1879, the structure collapsed with the loss of a train and all of its passengers.   This proved to be due to shoddy workmanship and the substitution of inferior building materials, with the  civil engineer who had designed the bridge, going  from being knighted by Queen Victoria, to dying a broken and disgraced man.

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