Old photograph of fishing boats in the harbour in Leven, Fife, Scotland. David Gibb, eldest son of Robert Gibb, a salt manufacturer, and his wife Joanna, was born in Methil near Leven, Fife on 31 October 1883. He attended Leven Public School and then George Watsons College in Edinburgh. He studied mathematics and sciences at the University of Edinburgh. While being a student, he lodged with Mr Flockhart at 3 West Preston Street, Edinburgh. In 1909 he began lecturing in mathematics at the University. In 1910 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his contributions to mathematics and astronomy. During the First World War he worked on the Ballistic Department Ordnance Committee at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, remotely calculating complex gun angles to fire on hidden or obscured targets, such as at the Gallipoli peninsula. In 1934 he was promoted to Reader in Mathematics and remained in this role until his death on 28th March 1946 in Edinburgh. The harbour originally ranked as a creek under Kirkcaldy port, and prior to 1876 was simply the natural inlet at the mouth of the river, difficult of access, but admitting vessels of 300 tons to a small quay built about 1833. Under the Leven Harbour Act, however, of 1876, a new wet dock, a river wall, a protection wall, and a railway siding, were constructed at a cost of £40,000, and opened in 1880. The dock was 500 feet long and 250 broad, and had 16 feet of water on the sill at ordinary tides. Vessels of 800 tons could be loaded, but financially the scheme was not successful, and the trust disposed of the works to the proprietor. The new docks erected at Methil still further lessened the trade. The principal imports were flax and tow, barley, timber, pig-iron, and bones; and the principal exports were coal, linen, and linen yarn, whisky, bone dust, cast iron, and potatoes.
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