The Scottish Military Research Group - Commemorations Project

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject:

Surname TODD
Firstname William
Service number 420570
Date of death 17/08/1917
Decoration
Place of birth
Other
SNWM roll CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
Rank Sgt
Theatre of death Unknown

Name: TODD
Initials: W
Nationality: Canadian
Rank: Sergeant
Regiment: Canadian Infantry (Manitoba Regiment)
Unit Text: 16th Bn.
Age: 25
Date of Death: 16/08/1917
Service No: A/20570
Additional information: Son of Catherine Todd, of Buttery Bank, Coupar Angus, Perthshire.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: V. E. 2.
Cemetery: LILLERS COMMUNAL CEMETERY

BLAIRGOWRIE ADVERTISER: 01.09.17
The death took place at the Front on 16th August of Sergeant William Todd, of the Canadian Scottish, from wounds sustained the previous day.
This soldier was the youngest son of Mrs Todd, Buttery Bank, and was born at Lochton about 25 years ago.
For a time he was a ploughman at the Thorn, Borelands, and other places in the district, and went to canada about five years ago.
When war broke out he heard and answered the call, joining up in January 1915, and coming over this side with the first draft.
He had been at the Front for two years eight months, and was twice previously wounded, his third wound proving fatal.

Attestation Papers:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=277983&interval=20&&PHPSESSID=p0v2s1q428v6m0n017015dcbt7

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:30 pm Post subject:

Surname WELSH
Firstname Thomas
Age 28
Service number 280
Date of death 05/11/1914
Decoration
Place of birth Pitlandie Perth
Other - 06-11-14. 1st Dragoons (Royals).
SNWM roll COMMANDS AND STAFF; CAVALRY (EXCLUDING GREYS AND SCOTTISH YEOMANRY)
Rank S/Smith
Theatre of death F.& F.

Name: WELSH, THOMAS
Initials: T
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Shoeing Smith
Regiment: 1st (Royal) Dragoons
Age: 28
Date of Death: 05/11/1914
Service No: 280
Additional information: Son of James and G. Welsh, of Hope Park Lodge, Rattray, Blairgowrie, Perthshire. Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 58
Cemetery: YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL

I have a photograph of Thomas Welsh, together with personal details and casualty report.
He also appears on the Blairgowrie War Memorial, which is to be published very shortly in book form.
If I can be allowed to withold at the moment. Thank you.

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:44 pm Post subject:

HARRY WHITTET, PTE. M G CORPS

This casualty could not be found on the usual sources i.e SNWM/CWGC/Soldiers Died.
These are the examples which are not only a bit of a puzzle but can be very frustrating. However, I found him in the civil death records.
Harry Whittet died February 15th 1921 at Kilgraston Hospital near Perth. His ususal residence was Blacklaw Farm (Bendochy Parish), Blairgowrie.
His occupation was farm servant/Army pensioner Pvt. 4/th Black Watch.
No further detail as yet.

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject:

WORLD WAR TWO

Surname BRODIE
Firstname William Forbes Petrie
Service number 993595
Date of death 29/11/1943
Decoration
Place of birth Blairgowrie
Other
SNWM roll ROYAL AIR FORCE and DOMINION AIR FORCES
Rank A C 2
Theatre of death R.A.F.V.R. F.E.

Name: BRODIE, WILLIAM FORBES PETRIE
Initials: W F P
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Aircraftman 2nd Class
Regiment: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
Age: 29
Date of Death: 29/11/1943
Service No: 993595
Additional information: Son of George Brown Brodie and Margaret Brodie, of Rattray, Perthshire.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Column 429.
Cemetery: SINGAPORE MEMORIAL

I have a photograph of William Brodie, together with personal details and casualty report.
He also appears on the Blairgowrie War Memorial, which is to be published very shortly in book form.
If I can be allowed to withold at the moment. Thank you.

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:27 pm Post subject:

Surname FARQUHARSON
Firstname Alexander Watson
Service number 142875
Date of death 12/07/1943
Decoration D.F.M.
Place of birth Tannadice
Other
SNWM roll ROYAL AIR FORCE and DOMINION AIR FORCES
Rank Plt Off
Theatre of death R.A.F.V.R. Malta.

Name: FARQUHARSON, ALEXANDER WATSON
Initials: A W
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Pilot Officer
Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
Unit Text: 108 Sqdn.
Date of Death: 12/07/1943
Service No: 142875
Awards: DFM
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 7, Column 1.
Memorial: MALTA MEMORIAL

BLAIRGOWRIE ADVERTISER: 30.07.43
Mr and Mrs A. W. Farquharson, Newhouse, Glamis, formerly of
Bendochy, have been notified that their son, Pilot Officer A. W. Farquhrason, is missing from recent operations.
Pilot Officer Farquharson, who is 24, was born at Finavon and was educated at Blairgowrie High School when his parents were residing at Bendochy district before his father took up employment at Newhouse farm.
For some time before he joined the R.A.F. in 1940 Pilot Officer Farquharson was employed on the farm of Mr A. D. C. Main, Windyedge, Perth, as a tractor driver.
He was promoted Pilot Officer three months ago.
In February this year it was announced that Pilot Officer Farquharson (then Flight-Sergeant) had been awarded the D.F.M. for conspicuous gallantry in flying operations in the Middle East.
He went to the Middle East in February last year. At the beginning of this year he was wounded and was in hospital in Malta.

BLAIRGOWRIE ADVERTISER: 26.02.44
Mr and Mrs A. W. Farquharson, Newhouse, Glamis, formerly of Bendochy, have been notified that their son, Pilot Officer Alexander W. Farquharson, who was reported missing in July last year, is now believed to have been killed in Sicily.

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:27 pm Post subject:

Surname GIBB
Firstname Robert McG
Service number 409892
Date of death 15/08/1944
Decoration
Place of birth Perth
Other
SNWM roll THE SCOTTISH HORSE R.A.
Rank Gnr
Theatre of death Western Europe Campaign, 1944-45

Name: GIBB, ROBERT McG.
Initials: R M
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Gunner
Regiment/Service: Royal Artillery
Unit Text: 79 (The Scottish Horse) Medium Regt.
Age: 29
Date of Death: 15/08/1944
Service No: 409892
Additional information: Son of Amos L. and Margret C. Gibb, of Kinrossie, Perthshire, Scotland.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: XXII. E. 3.
Cemetery: BRETTEVILLE-SUR-LAIZE CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:27 pm Post subject:

Surname SHAW
Firstname James
Service number 70617
Date of death 08/07/1944
Decoration
Place of birth Coupar Angus
Other
SNWM roll ROYAL AIR FORCE and DOMINION AIR FORCES
Rank Flt Lt
Theatre of death R.A.F. B.C.

Name: SHAW, JAMES
Initials: J
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Flight Lieutenant (Pilot)
Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force
Age: 32
Date of Death: 08/07/1944
Service No: 70617
Additional information: Son of Geoffrey Turton Shaw and Mary Grace Shaw; husband of Marjorie Catherine Helene Shaw, of Coupar Angus. B.A. History (Cantab): Caius College.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Cemetery: BENDOCHY PARISH CHURCHYARD

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:28 pm Post subject:

Surname TURNBULL
Firstname Alexander Stewart
Service number 86625
Date of death 18/01/1943
Decoration
Place of birth Bindochy
Other
SNWM roll ROYAL AIR FORCE and DOMINION AIR FORCES
Rank Sqn Ldr
Theatre of death R.A.F.V.R. E.A.C.

Name: TURNBULL, ALEXANDER STEWART
Initials: A S
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Squadron Leader
Regiment: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
Unit Text: 153 Sqdn.
Date of Death: 18/01/1943
Service No: 86625
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 6, Column 1.
Cemetery: MALTA MEMORIAL

I have a photograph of Alexander Turnbull, together with personal details and casualty report.
He also appears on the Blairgowrie War Memorial, which is to be published very shortly in book form.
If I can be allowed to withold at the moment. Thank you.

dhubthaigh · Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 3:42 pm Post subject:

BLAIRGOWRIE ADVERTISER: 29.10.1921

BENDOCHY WAR MEMORIAL UNVEILED

ADDRESS BY COLONEL CLERK RATTRAY

A very handsome and substantial memorial to the fourteen men of Bendochy Parish who fell in the war has been erected at the entrance to Bendochy Parish Church, and takes the form of an artistic arched gateway, 16 feet high, with hammered-iron gates, the designer being by Mr Reginald Fairley, Edinburgh (who also designed the Blairgowrie & Rattray War Memorial), and the builders Messrs Reid & Sons, Coupar Angus. In the top centre of the arch is carved the figure of a pelican, and in bold raised letters underneath are the words:- ‘Give unto the Lord what is due unto His name. 1914 - 1918’. The arch and the dyke alongside are built of Hallyburton stone, and on the marble slabs fitted inside the arch, one on each side, are the names of the fallen. The inscription reads:- ‘In remembrance of the men of this church and parish who laid down their lives in the Great War. Pte. Donald Stewart, Scots Guards; Shoeing-Smith Thomas Welsh, Royal Dragoons; Sergt. David K. Martin, Black Watch; Pte. David Paton, Royal Scots; Pte. William Pattison, 43rd Canadians; Corpl. Fred Pattison, Canadian Highlanders; Sergt. James M. Matthew, Black Watch; Sergt. William Todd, Canadian Highlanders; Corpl. James Crichton, Manchester Regiment; Pte. James Robb, Scottish Horse; Pte. Francis Forsyth, N.Z. Rifles; Pte. Charles Thomson, Black Watch; Pte. Harry Whittet, M.G. Corps; Pte. David Robb, Scottish Horse. Their name liveth for evermore’.

The dedication and unveiling ceremony took place on Sunday afternoon, when the church, in which the first part of the service was held, was crowded, chairs being placed in the passages. Well on for 300 were present. The Communion table and baptismal font were beautifully set off with vases of chrysanthemums and other flowers, beech foliage, &c. As the congregation assembled Miss MacCulloch, Coupar Angus, the organist, gave a fine rendering, as a Voluntary, ‘O for the Wings of a Dove’, from Mendelssohn’s ‘Hear My Prayer’. Rev. A. Wylie Smith, B.D., minister of the parish, conducted the service, which was commenced with Psalm xivi. 1-5; and included prayers; reading from Hebrews xi. 13-4, xii 1-2; and the hymns ‘Our God Our Help in ages past’ and ‘For all the Saints’.

Rev. Mr Wylie Smith, preaching from John xv. 13, said they were met to commemorate the sacred names of their noble quota to the Empire’s price paid to the full and so bitterly for their future liberty, security, and peace, and he felt that they could not better do so than with the aid and inspiration which their text gave them. The finest commentators of such a text and the most magnificent preachers on such a theme had just been those boys concerning whom they were met that day to register their deathless tribute and gratitude and affection. It were a gruesome task if they were deprived of such aid in their consideration of that searching, sorrowful theme, if they were left merely to the thought of the material circumstances of the manner of their death - far from home, with no dear ones near them, with no hand of kith and kin to close their eyes, with no familiar voice to whisper a word of love in their dying moments, with the damp earth for their bed, and their life blood drenching the sod upon which they lay. Thus they faced and thus they met the faithful soldier’s last call. But with the inspiration, aid, and guidance of such a text, a very much worthier and nobler setting was given to their glorious sacrifice. Greater love hath no man than to give his life, as they did, for his friends and country. It was like the rising of a glorious gateway, with service as its one pillar and sacrifice as its other pillar, and love the gloriously moulded arch that held them together and lifted up its beautiful testimony to heaven. Small wonder was it that they felt happy in their choice of a gateway as the most appropriate emblem of the undying devotion they felt to the memory of those boys. Death to them was the gate of life. Small wonder was it that they rejoiced in the crowning motto on the gateway - “Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name’.
Not that they ever dreamed of giving thanks to God for the premature and ruthless removal of such a wealth of manhood from their homes and country, but eternal praise to God for having used them to be such magnificent preachers of that text and such exquisite expositors of a beautiful selfless sacrifice of their own choice. Small wonder, too, that they prided themselves on that beautifully executed symbol on the gateway - the figure of the pelican, noble amongst birds Endowed by Nature with a pouch under its bill, in which it carried food for its young, in the act of dispensing that food it brought the red end of its beak so close against the spotless white feathers of its breast that the legend arose in early times that this was a spot of blood, and that the pelican fed her young with her own blood.
These boys whom they were commemorating that day had fed their country and delivered her with their blood. Nor would they wonder that they rejoiced in the graceful span of the arch of the gateway, for it was possible to look through it as if they were looking away beyond the bounds of frail flesh and time, away to the promise of the East, away to the glories of the dawn, away to the steadfast witness of the Sidlaw Hills, telling them of the faithfulness of God and of the golden promise of the better day and the better life that those boys had won for them. It was no new doctrine this sorrow of sacrifice, but they had become so self-centered in pre-war days that they forgot that sacrifice had any value in the world. Those fallen heroes had brought it all back to them. It was well reflected in that familiar and typical old Scots song, ‘Caller Herrin’, in which a new name had been coined by the wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the fisherman:-

Wives and mothers, maist despairin’,
Ca’ them lives o’men.

If there was any reality in their commemoration of those boys, any sincerity in the tribute they were paying to their national heroes through the multiplicity of memorials, surely it would take some such form as this - Am I so base, can I continue to be so callous, to go on living my life as if such things had never happened, and as if no precious boys of ours had gone to fight and die in order that we might live? God speed to the conference for disarmament in America, and all prosperity to the attempt at home to bring the various classes of industry together and hail the day when this country shall be what these boys pictured themselves when they went forth to die. Concluding, Mr Smith quoted the following line:-

Around me, when I wake or sleep,
Men strange to me their vigil keep;
And some were boys but yesterday
Upon the village green they’d play.
Their faces I shall never know
Like sentinels they come and go.
In grateful love I bow the knee
For nameless men who died for me.
There is in earth or heaven no room
Where I can flee this dreadful doom:
For ever it is understood
I am a man redeemed by blood.
I must walk softly all my days
Down my redeemed and solemn ways.
Christ, take the men I bring to Thee,
The men who watched and died for me.

The second part of the service was held at the gateway, the congregation, headed by two pipers (Messrs Matthew and Pitkeathly, Coupar Angus) and by the minister and Colonel Clerk Rattray of Craighall (who was to perform the unveiling ceremony), marching by a side exit from the churchyard round to the main entrance, where Rev. Mr Smith called on Mr J. Gibson, The Schoolhouse, to read the names commemorated on the panels to the left and right of the gateway. This having been done, the minister called on Colonel Clerk Rattray to formally open the gate and on the part of the great gathering to pass through. Colonel Clerk Rattray dedicated the gateway and then the panels, which were covered with the Union Jack, “To the glory of God and to the memory of the fallen from this parish”. A number of beautiful wreaths were laid at the foot of the panels by relatives of the deceased and others, one from the congregation being deposited by the oldest member, Mrs Gardiner, Southfield, Coupar Grange, and another from the Public School children by one of the pupils, Annie M’Inroy, Coupar Grange, the pipers meantime playing ‘The Flowers of the Forest’.
Colonel Clerk Rattray said he wished someone had been chosen who could, more fitly than he could, have expressed the mingled feelings of sorrow and gratitude and pride which they all experienced on that occasion. Mr Wylie Smith, in his sermon, had expressed their feelings in this matter in a heartfelt way that they all echoed. In thanking them for the kindly feeling that had led them to ask him to unveil their beautiful memorial gateway, he could only say that it was a very great pleasure to Mrs Clerk Rattray and himself to be there that day, and he felt sure they would make kindly allowances for any deficiencies in what he would try to say. He admired very much indeed the design and beauty of the memorial, and thought the Committee were very greatly to be congratulated on the success of their efforts. As in Blairgowrie, they had been extremely fortunate in finding a man of real original genius to design and help them with the erection of the memorial. He knew he would be voicing the feelings of all when he said how deeply they sympathised with the relatives of the fourteen lads whose names were inscribed on the memorial. It was a great loss they had sustained, and that beautiful gateway was a proof that the parish of Bendochy was not unmindful of the value of the lives sacrificed. It was an expression of gratitude, which, he was sure, would be a source of consolation and of pride to those men’s relations in all time coming. In the present days, he continued, so difficult for all of us, when the country was like a patient beginning to struggle out of a fever, we were, perhaps, apt to forget what a terrible fate would have been ours but for the endurance and great gallantry displayed over a series of years by the manhood of our race. One great use of the memorials which were rising throughout the length and breadth of the country would, he hoped, be to keep us mindful of how very precious a thing was the ordered freedom which had now for so long had been enjoyed in our beautiful country, and of the great price that had been paid for it. If we looked back little more than a hundred years we saw at Waterloo the close of another long struggle against alien military domination, in which, on many a field, Scottish regiments played a glorious part and sustained heavy losses. Some 50 years before the time of Waterloo the 42nd Regiment, then in the early days of its history, did some especially distinguished service in Canada. He noticed that among the names commemorated that day five belonged to the Black Watch and three were enrolled as Canadians. It was interesting to reflect that the gallantry displayed in Canada and the lives sacrificed there so long ago by our own County Regiment had not a little to do with the fact that the magnificent Western Dominion now gave scope for the energies and provided congenial homes to so many of our people. Going back still further, the long story of the wars of the Reformation showed at what cost in suffering and in lives our liberties, civil and religious, were established. Again, had it not been for the courage and determination of our forebears at the time of Wallace and Bruce our position today might have been very different from what it is. A great hope had now arisen of settling disputes would be found than the cruel waste of war. Just as it was no longer necessary for the individual in ordinary life to go about armed, because the police and Law Courts rendered that unnecessary, so it was hoped that the League of Nations might become sufficiently powerful to extinguish national wars. We must all do what in us lies to help the men who were striving towards the attainment of the great ideal. This ideal, however, was still a long way off, and until it was achieved it remained out duty to keep ourselves prepared both on the side of physical fitness and of technical skill to play a part, should, alas, the necessary again arise, which would not be unworthy of our predecessors. Indeed, he thought we ought to try and do more than that. Had Germany not believed that our military strength had been allowed to so decay as to become practically negligible the sacrifices of those and countless other lives might possibly have been avoided. It would, he feared, be a long time yet before we could afford to forget the Scottish thistle or national motto. But to be willing and capable of sharing effectively in the defence of our country was by no means the only duty of which the memorial should serve to remind us. The Divine law, as embodied in Nature, to get to understand her rules better and to bring our actions into conformity with them - a struggle to repress our lower instincts. It was only by doing our very best in all those directions that we survivors could be faithful to the trust imposed upon us by our history, and particularly by the example of those brave men who gave their lives for their country during the Great War of 1914-1918.

The Dedication prayer by the minister followed, then ‘The Last Post’, sounded by a quartet of young members of Blairgowrie and Rattray Municipal Band - Masters Carlo Assenti, John Farquharson, Alex. Robertson, and Harris Ogilvy - under Mr J. Ogilvie, the conductor, who also led the praise in Paraphrase ixvi., ‘How bright those glorious spirits shine’; the Benediction; and the National Anthem, the instrumental quartet again leading.

The gateway is understood to have cost well on for £500

stuartn · Joined: 13 Dec 2016 Posts: 2551

WMR 82378