The Scottish Military Research Group - Commemorations Project

Adam Brown · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:45 am Post subject: Redcoats memorial on BBC News

BBC Scotland are reporting that Trevor Royle has writen that the Redcoats who died at Culloden should now have a memorial since their graves have been identified. It doesn't mention that a large proportion of the redcoats who served in this campaign were Scots.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8576910.stm

Call for Battle of Culloden red coat memorial

A military historian has called for a memorial to soldiers who fought the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden.

Trevor Royle said the government army has no equivalent to the markers on the battlefield which recall their foes.

Writing in the National Trust for Scotland's magazine, he said little was known of those who served in the red coat regiments on 16 April 1746.

The site where fallen government soldiers were buried was only recently identified by archaeologists.

In the article, Mr Royle said some of the Duke of Cumberland's red coats went on to play a part in unpleasant aspects of the battle's aftermath.

Quite properly, none of Cumberland's regiments was granted Culloden as a battle honour

However, he said the thousands who fought at Culloden should be remembered because the battle and regiments involved were important to the future development of the nation and the British Army.

In the latest edition of Scotland in Trust, he writes: "Quite properly, none of Cumberland's regiments was granted Culloden as a battle honour, but 264 years later is it not fitting that their role in the battle should be dignified by a memorial?"

Last summer, a new book on the battle, Culloden: The History and Archaeology of the Last Clan Battle, said the precise location of where fallen government soldiers were buried had been discovered.

University of Glasgow's Dr Tony Pollard, who edited the book, said it was a breakthrough as the grave sites had been previously unknown.

He believed a German coin dated 1752 and found in the Field of the English at Culloden was dropped by a soldier who was visiting the graves when they were still marked.

This location also corresponded with a geophysics anomaly which suggested a pit.

In 2008, the trust launched a search for children with ancestors who fought at Culloden.

After first drawing a blank, a descendent of soldiers who served on both sides was found.

An examination of Inverness schoolboy Philip Nicol's family tree revealed three brothers of the Farquharson family of Allargue in Aberdeenshire.

Two were officers with the Jacobite army, while their brother fought with the government troops