Carbisdale. Scotland's forgotten battlefield.

Culrain in the Highlands is a quiet place. There is a small train station which serves a magnificent castle-turned-youth-hostel and not much else. You probably won't find yourself driving through it, you have to drive to Culrain for a reason. 

It is along a single track road about three miles from Ardgay. Ardgay (pronounced Ardguy) isn't even on the main road north now that the Dornoch Firth Bridge takes the A9 traffic away from the Kyle of Sutherland.

As you come out of Culrain station or drive past it, you wouldn't realise that the trees in the small field right beside you are on top of what may or may not be an arrow-headed ravelin; if it is then it makes it one of the few battlefields in Britain with earthwork defences still visible.

If you looked along the small road heading towards the hills and woods in the distance you wouldn't realise that it bisects the battlefield which saw the final defeat of one of Scotland's most famous warriors.

There is nothing there to tell you this is the battlefield of Carbisdale; no plaque, no information board, no monument. Now I know we don't like defeats in Scotland (especially ones where it was Scot versus Scot) but surely we could do better than this. The Great Montrose saw his end at Carbisdale on 27th April 1650 and there is nothing there to let us know it.

Luckily for me I had a look at the detailed Inventory of Scottish Battlefields entry for Carbisdale before I went so I knew exactly where to go and what to look for. Anyone turning up without a copy of that would be left scratching their heads. 

I'll not go into detail of Montrose's 1650 campaign through the Far North and the battle itself because it is all in the Historic Scotland pdf above. Instead I'll give you some photographs of the battlefield. Surprisingly few are out there already.

Being the middle of summer it was absolutely chucking it down with rain when I visited so I pretty much stuck to the roads when taking them. 

I'll start with a panoramic view of the battlefield taken from outside the community hall. On the left side of the road are the fields where Montrose formed up his troops. The hills behind them would have been where the Ross and Munro contingents waited to see which way the battle turned. On the right of the road is where the Royalist troops ran towards the woods and where they were cut down by Strachan's mounted troops. 

 

Facing south from the road looking across the battlefield. It is a field and there's not much more to be said about it.

The woods north-west of Culrain. On the right are the slopes of Lamentation Hill. The Danish contingent of Montrose's army supposedly made a stand in front of this wood.

The ravelin? It is hard to make out in these photographs but the ridges in the ground in this field form a 'V' shape with the point under the trees. This small field is beside the road running alongside the railway station. This photograph is taken opposite the community hall facing south.

Another shot of the ravelin field. This is taken from beside the bridge which crosses the railway line facing west. This hopefully shows the 'V' more clearly on either side of the trees.

Behind the community hall. There is a ditch here seemingly. It was too overgrown and certainly too wet for the light shoes I was wearing for further investigation on the day I was there.

Sir Hector Munro - Who's Who in Scottish Military History

We’ve mentioned Sir Hector Munro before in the Who’s Who about Lord Macleod. They were contemporaries of each other but while Macleod was a Jacobite, Munro was a staunch supporter of the Hanoverians. When MacLeod was an exile in Europe, Munro was rising through the ranks in the British Army.

In his long career Munro served in many parts of the world but it was in India he had his biggest success, and biggest failure.

It’s not clear exactly when he was born but his father moved from Novar to Clayside at Dunrobin Mains, near Golspie when he was a baby, so he was probably born in 1725-1726.

He was first commissioned into Loudon’s 64th Highlanders in 1747 but biographies mention previous service against the Jacobites. He may well have served in one of the Independent Companies raised by the Northern clans in 1745-46 and under Loudon’s command which were beaten at Inverness and Dornoch. If he was captured, as has been rumoured, then he was unlikely to have taken part in Cromartie’s defeat at Golspie.

After being commissioned in the 64th Highlanders he went with them to the Low Countries, where they were serving in the War of Austrian Succession. His regiment was in action at Bergen-op-Zoom near Antwerp but saw little service apart from that. It was disbanded in June 1748 at the end of hostilities.

Munro was after an army life so transferred into the 48th Foot as an ensign, and then in the days of purchasing commissions he bought himself a lieutenancy in the 31st Foot in Ireland, and a few years later he was a Captain and company commander of the 2nd battalion 31st Foot (which became the 70th Foot in 1758).

Another regiment soon followed in 1759 when Munro got his majority in the newly raised 89th Highlanders. This was during the Seven Years War and Imperial commitments saw the 89th being sent to India.

With Munro in charge the 89th arrived outside French held Pondicherry in Madras in September 1760. They were there until early 1761 when they were sent to Bombay after the French capitulated.

When the 89th sailed for home in 1763 Munro elected to stay in India. In 1764 he was sent to his third East Indian Company Presidency in India, Bengal, with some other European troops to help quell a mutiny amongst EIC sepoys.

No believer in taking a soft line Munro decided that the only way to deal with the sepoys, whether their grievances were justified or not, was to execute the ringleaders in typical EIC fashion - by tying them to the wheels of a cannon and blowing them apart. He also disbanded the most rebellious native regiment.
With the mutiny suppressed Munro was given charge of the Bengal Presidency Army and took it north from Calcutta to head off an invasion force of Mughals on the Bihar – Oudh border.

On 22nd September 1764 Munro’s army met the Mughals at Buxar, under the command of Nawab Wazir Shuja ud-Daula.

On paper it looked like there would be no contest. The Indians had a force of 40,000 and Munro had only 7,000 men. However since taking command Munro had drilled his men hard to prepare for battle and it would be no walkover.

In a shocking display of underestimating your opponent Shuja ud-Daula left his prepared defences and advanced over open ground to meet Munro’s force.
Wave after wave of Mughal cavalry attacked the Bengal Presidency Army but Munro’s training had paid off and the disciplined firepower of the redcoats held off the horsemen.

Munro then showed his tactical prowess by throwing forward his sepoys at the point of the bayonet onto his opponent’s left flank. The Indians were unprepared for this assault and fell back. Retreat soon turned to rout as the whole Indian front line collapsed.

Whilst Plassey in 1757 may have been the decisive battle to decide which European power influenced Indian affairs, it was the overwhelming victory at Buxar which led to the East India Company becoming the de facto rulers of India’s richest provinces and it tuned British traders into rulers.

It was the high point of Munro’s career and with a very large haul of prize money he resigned his commission and returned to Scotland in early 1765. His uncle had left him the Munro estate at Novar in Cromarty near Evanton, and his money bought him a seat in Westminster as MP for Inverness Burghs. For the next few years he led the life of a country laird spending his Indian fortune on improving his house and estate.

Investment mistakes and loss of money in the 1770s probably led to his decision to rejoin the army. India was where he had made his name and his fortune over ten years before; so with his EIC and parliamentary connections, and his reputation preceding him, he was appointed in 1777 as commander-in-chief at Madras. Now he also had a local royal commission as an EIC major-general and a seat on the Madras council.

Things were complicated in India when Munro arrived. Struggles for control of the East India Company were taking place in London and in Madras the local rulers were not as compliant as the ones in Bengal. It was a recipe for future disaster.

Munro had to deal with weak allies, a strong and antagonistic neighbour, and the involvement of the French and Dutch. Both had enclaves in India and the American War of Independence saw them become allies of the Unites States and enemies of Britain. When the news of the French taking the American’s side reached Munro in 1778 he immediately marched south to take their base at Pondicherry. He had last been there nearly twenty years before with the 89th Highlanders and once again the French capitulated.

Eager to capitalise on his success he captured the other French settlements on the Coromandel Coast / Malabar Coast. Unfortunately this eagerness to defeat the French antagonised Hyder Ali, the powerful ruler of Mysore at Seringapatam.

Ali had no love for the British and had beaten them in a war in 1768. He also considered the French possessions to have been under his protection. Munro’s attacks on Pondicherry was too much for Hyder Ali and he made preparations to march across the Eastern Ghats and onto the Carnatic Plain.

Time and again we’ve seen in our who’s who and on this day articles that pride comes before a fall; and once again a Scot in a position of power chose to ignore the advice of others and carry on regardless.

Hyder Ali and his son Tipoo Sultan amassed 90,000 men. It took time to assemble an army of that size and throughout 1779 and early 1780 it was obvious to everyone except Munro that he would be marching East in strength. Munro chose to ignore the signs. Even when reinforcements were sent to him, including the newly raised Lord Macleod’s Highlanders, they were sent to outlying posts.

In June 1780 Ali moved. Munro finally responded. Instead of ordering his outnumbered troops back to the protection of Madras to regroup he decided to push his force forward and consolidate his army in the field.

The man who lead the Bengal Army to victory against impossible odds at Buxar must have thought he could outfight Ali’s native host. Munro was sadly misjudging his opponent. Ali’s army was well trained by French advisors, and equipped with the latest guns. As Munro advanced on Arcot he expected his other troops to meet him at Conjeeveram.

Unfortunately for Munro his supply train was not as good as he had hoped and his advance bogged down. Ali advanced to meet him before he could congregate all his forces, and Colonel Baillie’s column containing Macleod’s Highlanders was attacked and soundly beaten at the Battle of Pollilur by Tipoo Sultan’s force. 2,800 men, including the future general, David Baird, were killed or captured.
Munro knew his position was untenable and finally retreated to Madras leaving Hyder Ali in control of most of the Carnatic Plain.

Munro’s handling of the affair nearly wrecked his career. He was criticised by Macleod on his tactics and his failure to support Baillie’s men once battle commenced. Certainly no other East India Company in the Carnatic had been beaten so badly. Rather than being sacked Munro was effectively demoted when Eyre Coote was sent to take command of the Madras Army. Munro continued to serve under Coote and attempted to rebuild his reputation as Coote took the fight back to Ali.

Eventually after a spell in his sick bed in Madras he was given independent command again. This time it was to capture the Dutch port of Negapatam in November 1791. Munro’s old skill returned and this attack was a success.

Munro’s second spell in India was now coming to an end. With the campaigning over he resigned his appointment and returned to London. Mixed fortunes awaited him at home. He was granted a knighthood for capturing Pondicherry and then sacked by the East India Company for losing Baillie’s column. He must have cried all the way to the bank because he was awarded yet more prize money and was made a major general in the British army.

He remained a soldier on paper an eventually becoming a full general on 1st January 1798 and he was also Colonel of the 42nd Highlanders (the Black Watch).

His main activity between his return to the UK in 1782 and his death in 1805 seems to have been interesting himself on improving his estate in the then current fashion of replacing tenants with sheep. The man who restored order in Bengal by blowing mutineers from his cannon had no problems bringing the army in to restore order when his improvements provoked protests in the summer of 1792.

However he also showed a slightly more benevolent side when he built a folly on his land to provide jobs during a period of unemployment. Fyrish Monument is said to represent the gates of Negapatam, the city he had captured in 1781 and which had saved his reputation. It doesn’t, but it certainly has an Asian feel to it, and given he renamed many of the parks on his estate after places in India then it’s likely Fyrish was built to remind him of his many years in the sub-continent.

Finally was it civic duty as the local MP, or right-wing tendencies, which led him to provide a substantial sum of money to the building of the new court house and jail in Inverness? The building is gone but Munro’s steeple and clock still survive to mark his contribution to his constituency’s policing.

It was at Novar where Munro died. Uncertainty over his date of birth was matched by the uncertainty of his date of death. Sources quote late December 1805 or early January 1806. His headstone says 27th December 1805.

Munro is a little known figure in his own land. I come from East Sutherland and had never heard of him until recently, but he was an important figure in the history of the British in India. His reforms in the Bengal and Madras EIC armies and his victory at Buxar had laid solid foundations for British supremacy in India and the establishment of the Raj.

Scotland hears of the loss of the Hood - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1941

A nation was stunned seventy years ago today when news filtered through that HMS 'Hood' had been sunk by the 'Bismarck'. The pride of the Royal Navy had been completely outclassed by the German warship, and was sunk on 24th May 1941 with the loss of nearly all hands. Only three sailors survived out of a compliment of 1,418

The Clydebuilt battlecruiser 'Hood' had been ordered by the Navy in 1916 after losing three battleships at Jutland. She was launched from John Brown's shipyard in August 1918 and fitting out was done at Rosyth. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy in May 1920 and from the start she was seen as something special. She was the only one of her class built, so there was no other warship like her. Memories of people who saw her, and served on her, talked of a powerful yet beautiful ship. The Scotsman from seventy years ago today reported her loss and recorded that she was 'The largest warship afloat by tonnage'.

John Brown's large scale model of her still exists and you can get an idea of what she looked like from that. (The model used to sit in the Transport Museum in Glasgow and I hope it is in the new museum at the Riverside when it opens)

During the 1920s and 1930s the Hood travelled all over the world flying the flag so she was well known throughout the Empire where her size and armament earned her the nickname 'Mighty Hood'. In 1935 she had sailed round Scotland and into Loch Eriboll on the North Coast. Whilst anchored there a party of sailors went ashore and on the hillside at Laid set out white painted stones in 6 foot high letters spelling 'Hood'.

In those happy times just before the Second World War no-one expected that she would be lost in so violent a manner and that the white painted stones in the remote Highlands would be one of the few mementos of her service and connection to Scotland.

In recent years children from the local primary school at Durness in Sutherland have kept alive the memory of the 'Hood' by repainting the stones and those of other Royal Navy ships which have followed her in laying out stones in the name of their ship.

The latest ship to do it was the Type 23 Frigate HMS 'Sutherland'. Although a Duke Class frigate, so named after the Duke of Sutherland, the people of the County of Sutherland have adopted her, and men from the 'Sutherland' have visited Loch Eriboll a couple of times to help repaint all the stones at Laid.

John Mackenzie, Count of Cromarty - Who’s Who in Scottish Military History.

Today’s Who’s Who is about one of several Scots who fought for the Jacobites during the ’45 Rebellion and ended their military career in the British Army.

John Mackenzie, Lord MacLeod was the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Cromartie. He was born in the family seat of Castle Leod near Strathpeffer in 1727. At the age of four he was first styled Lord Macleod and that was how he was best known for the rest of his life.

For the next fourteen years he had an uneventful life; then in 1745 his life changed forever. In December 1745 his father came out for the Jacobite cause and raised a Clan Regiment for Prince Charles’s army.

By the time they mustered the Jacobites had turned back at Derby and were now marching north. Cromartie and his son took their men south to meet and join the army.

Cromartie’s regiment joined the Jacobite host outside Stirling and it was near there at the Battle of Falkirk where Lord Macleod fought in his first battle. After the Jacobite’s reached Inverness Cromartie and his men were included in the Duke of Perth’s force which routed Loudon from Sutherland March 1746. Cromartie moved into Dunrobin Castle and sent his son further north in his first independent command.

He was only eighteen but Lord Macleod was given 300 men to go to Caithness and Orkney to find Jacobite recruits and plunder Hanoverian sympathisers’ lands for supplies and arms.

After three weeks without much success he returned to Dunrobin and was captured there on the day before the battle of Culloden by Highlanders loyal to the government.

He was taken to London with other Jacobite officers to be tried before the Commissioners. He pleaded guilty to high treason, but his youth and the limited part he played in the Rebellion may have counted in his favour. He was spared, death or slavery and pardoned. A condition of his pardon was the forfeiture of his title and he was sent into exile, but at least by 1748 he was alive and free.

He ended up under the wing of one of many Scots serving in European armies. Field Marshal James Keith. In 1750 Keith arranged MacLeod’s commission into the Swedish Army through the wife of the Swedish King – who also happened to be the sister of the Prussian King who was a friend of Keith.

Pomerania is in North Germany and Poland, opposite Sweden, and in the 1750s part of it was Swedish territory. Sweden coveted the parts of Pomerania they had ceded to Prussia in 1720 and the spread of the Seven Years War across Europe gave Sweden an excuse to attack Prussia in 1757. For the next five years Sweden and Prussia were at war over Pomerania and Macleod was involved in the fighting.

In 1762 Sweden ended the war after it had recovered no territory for the cost of 40,000 lives and vast sums of money it couldn’t afford to spend. Improbably Macleod then joined the army of his former enemy, Prussia, and fought alongside them against Russia.

Prussia and Russia ended their war in 1763 and Macleod returned to Swedish service. For the next few years he gave loyal service to Sweden; becoming an ADC to King Adolf Frederick and a earning a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. Amongst his honours he was given the Order of the Sword of Sweden and was made a Swedish count. The title he took was Count of Cromarty.

In 1777 he returned to Scotland. The War against the American States was draining the resources of the army and at the same time trouble was brewing in India. New regiments were needed for both theatres of war. Many former Jacobites or their families saw this as a way to help pave the way for the restoration of their lands and titles if they raised or served as soldiers in the British Army. In all eleven regular battalions were raised in Scotland in 1777 and 1778.

Macleod set to work immediately. In the 1770s there was no set recruiting areas in Scotland and any new regiment could send out recruiting parties across the country. The reputation of Lord MacLeod preceded him and he had no difficulty finding recruits. 840 men from the Highlands and 236 from the Lowlands. He had so much success at recruiting that a second battalion of the 73rd was authorised and that started recruiting as well shortly after the first had reached its establishment. The 2nd Bn 73rd was commanded by the Honourable George Mackenzie, Lord Macleod’s brother.

In late 1777 the 1/73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot (MacLeod's Highlanders) first mustered at Elgin under their colonel, John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod. A year later George II recognised Macleod’s Swedish title and the Count of Cromarty led his regiment to embark for India a month later in January 1779. (In the peerage a count and an earl are the same rank so in effect, though not in name and lands, he was the fourth Earl of Cromartie).

The regiment stopped off in West Africa for a short time and didn’t arrive in India until a year after it had left the UK. It landed in Madras in January 1780.

In September 1780 several companies were despatched to join a British force under the Scot Major General Sir Hector Munro, which was fighting the Indian army of Hyder Ali. The Companies were soon lost in an action against the Mysore Army at the Battle of Pollilur and the captured troops imprisoned at Seringapatam. They included a young officer called David Baird who would later lead a British force back to Seringapatam nearly twenty years later to take revenge on his former captors.

By this time McLeod had been promoted to Major General. He soon made it clear to Munro he was unhappy with the way his detached troops from the 73rd had been used. They were the same rank and about the same age but Munro had been in the British Army for many years and had served in India for most of that time and there may have been a clash of personalities.

By this time Macleod was over fifty and after many years service in Scandinavia he may not have taken to the tropical heat of Southern India. Whatever the reasons: age, temperature or arguments with his superiors; the old soldier left his regiment to return home before he had a chance to lead them into action.

He retired from army life on half pay and in 1782 he was promoted to Major General. In the mean time he decided on a political path and entered parliament as the MP for Ross-shire.

A final act of rehabilitation took place in 1784 when he purchased his family estate for £19,000 on the back of an Act of Parliament. The Count of Cromarty gave up his constituency and became a laird (His replacement at Westminster would later raise the 78th Highlanders).

He moved into a home at Tarbet on the Black Isle and stayed there for the next five years, spending his time rebuilding and improving his estate.

He was in Edinburgh in 1789 when he died; and probably fitting for a man who was in exile for so many years, he was buried in the kirkyard in the Canongate rather than his family lands in Ross-shire.

Macleod had returned from India in 1780 but remained the Colonel of his regiment until his death. Before he died he saw his regiment survive a reduction of the army and its renumbering as the 71st (Highland) Regiment of Foot (MacLeod's Highlanders). As the 71st it would later achieve more fame as the Highland Light Infantry.

The Second Last Battle on British Soil - On this day in Scottish Military History – 1746

Culloden is widely recognised as the last pitched battle on British soil. On this day 265 years ago the penultimate battle took place.

It was during the Jacobite Rebellion but didn’t involve Prince Charles’s main army. It was fought between local troops of the Earl of Sutherland, who were loyal to the Government, against the Jacobite troops of George Mackenzie, Earl of Cromartie. This wasn’t highlander vs. lowlander, or English vs. Scot. This was a battle between clansmen; a chance to settle some scores.

On 15th April 1746 word reached Cromartie that he and his men were now needed back in Inverness to rejoin the main army as Cumberland approached. They would leave Dunrobin, cross Loch Fleet at the narrows at Littleferry and head for Inverness.

Thinking that there were no government troops in the area Cromartie did not arrange a proper order of march and let his force split into two; the main body of his troops headed off first whilst Cromartie and his officers were entertained by a local Jacobite sympathiser - the Countess of Sutherland in Dunrobin.

They seriously underestimated their opponents. Sutherland men, supported by Mackays, were watching the Jacobites from the small hills above Golspie. Eager to take revenge on the Jacobites who had been pillaging their homes for weeks, the locals saw their chance when the main Jacobite Force passed along the narrow strip of land between the hills above Golspie and the sea.

The Sutherland men charged into the flank of the column. The leaderless Jacobite clansmen unprepared for battle took to their heels and streamed towards the ferry crossing to try and escape. A few escaped on the boats that were there, but most were rounded up by the Sutherland men



A company under Ensign Mackay quickly followed this victory by capturing Cromartie and his officers who had locked themselves in Dunrobin Castle.

Over two hundred Jacobite prisoners were taken and the rest of Cromartie’s force melted away into the hills to go home. 150 of those prisoners were transported as slaves to the West Indian and American plantations. They would have had plenty of time on the long voyage across the Atlantic to rue the day when they marched through Golspie without any pickets to guard their column, and deprived Prince Charles’s army of 500 valuable men.

The Jacobites Capture Kirkwall - On this day in Scottish Military History – 1746

On the same day Lord Reay and the captured Jacobite gold took shelter in Stromness in Orkney, a small detachment of Jacobites landed nearby in Kirkwall to support the local Jacobite sympathisers.

After the Earl of Loudon’s rout from Dornoch the Duke of Perth returned to Inverness with 300 men leaving the Earl of Cromartie in charge of 1,500 men to secure the Far North of Scotland for the Jacobites.

Cromartie split his force into three. He kept 500 men at hand to pacify East Sutherland; Coll Ban MacDonald of Barrisdale took 400 men off to find Lord Reay. (This was more little more than a clan feud since no love was lost between the MacDonalds of Assynt and the Mackays of Reay); and Cromartie’s son Lord MacLeod took 300 men north to secure Caithness and Orkney.

When MacLeod reached Caithness he detached a company of about 100 men under Mackenzie of Ardloch to sail to Kirkwall at the invitation of local Jacobites. On this day 265 years ago Kirkwall became the northernmost town captured by the Jacobites.

P.S Ardloch and his men only stayed a week. The Orcadians didn’t flock to the Jacobite cause as hoped.

The Rout of Loudon from Dornoch - On this day in Scottish Military History – 1746

When Loudon retreated north from Inverness he chose as his base the land of Southeast Sutherland around Dornoch. The Kyle of Sutherland and River Shin protected his flanks and by placing most of his men along the two rivers his aim was to stop the Jacobites reaching their sympathisers in Caithness and Orkney. Whilst at Dornoch Loudon had also been reinforced by nearly 400 clansmen of the Earl of Sutherland and 100 men from Lord Reay’s Clan Mackay.

The Jacobites were not happy to have such a large force of Hanoverian troops threatening their flanks and hampering the recruitment of new supporters from the North. It was decided that a frontal attack was out of the question, Loudon was in too strong a defensive position. Instead the Jacobites would land men by fishing boats across the Dornoch Firth from Tain to the sands at Lonemore, two miles west of Dornoch

Fishing boats were rounded up from the Moray coast under the noses of the Royal Navy, and the Duke of Perth took a force of 1,800 Jacobites north from Dingwall. Loudon was not expecting a seaborne invasion and had split his force in positions along the Kyle of Sutherland and River Shin to repel any landward attacks between Bonar and Lairg. A small number of Loudon’s troops guarded Meikle Ferry near Skibo but there were not enough to stop a large attack.

As the day broke on this day 265 years ago the Mackays guarding Meikle Ferry would have been shocked to see boat loads of Jacobites approaching them. Heavily outnumbered the Mackays fled. A company of the 64th Highlanders tried to intercept the Jacobites whilst they disembarked but in a highly professional operation the Jacobites landed hundreds of men in good order and secured their landing ground.

Loudon’s men knew they were in a very difficult position. Retreating through Dornoch they headed for Little Ferry at Loch Fleet. At the same time word was sent to Loudon who was inspecting his defences at Invershin.

Knowing the rest of his force was now in an untenable position Loudon scattered his troops. He sent the local recruits of Mackay and Sutherland men north through Lairg with some of his 64th Highlanders under the command of Lord Reay. Loudon took the rest of his regiment west with his loyal MacDonald and Macleod volunteers and eventually reached Skye a week later.

In a surprisingly efficient operation the Jacobites had routed Loudon’s small army with very little loss. They had opened up the North for supplies and recruits, captured a large number of prisoners and as a bonus they had found four ships hiding in Loch Fleet with valuable cargoes of arms and ammunition.

The Jacobites were still a force to be reckoned with.

Sutherlandshire Roll of Honour - Picture a Museum Day

It's picture-a-museum day today. All the big museums are involved but I'd like to highlight two items in two small museums in Sutherland.

The museums in question are the Brora Heritage Centre and Historylinks in Dornoch.

Both have Rolls of Honour for Sutherland from the First World War. They look similar but are actually different.

The one in Brora is called Sutherlandshire (c) and lists the men who served from East Sutherland from the parishes of Kildonan, Loth, Clyne and Golspie. The one in Dornoch is called Dornoch and District but is quite clearly done by the same people who did the one in Brora.

This leads me to suspect that there are other Sutherland Rolls of Honour. Perhaps Sutherlandshire (a) and Sutherlandshire (b) covered the other seven parishes of the county?

The one in Clyne used to hang in the drill hall in Brora and was thrown in a skip during its conversion to a library in the 1990s. Luckily a passing member of the Heritage Society saw it and rescued it.

The paper used is not the usual vellum used for rolls of honour and I think the local newspaper "The Northern Times" may have been involved in producing the rolls in 1919. That may mean several copies of the same rolls were produced to hang in drill halls or other prominent local places across the parishes of Sutherland. Historylinks have three copies of their roll which supports this theory.

The Scottish War Memorials Project now has hundreds of rolls of honour from all over Scotland and it is obvious many communities wanted to display rolls like these to highlight not only those who died but also those who served so I'm sure there would have been a demand across Sutherland for these Rolls of Honour.

Hopefully the other copies have not been lost. Many halls, churches and schools have war memorials and rolls of honour in storage in cupboards, and back rooms. I live in hope that the other rolls in this series will some day turn up in another museum or heritage centre in Sutherland.

It is picture a museum day so here are the photos of the rolls. The Historylinks' Roll is taken from this webpage.

Meet Adam Brown - The SMRG Team

We thought it might be a good idea to publish mini "profiles" of members of the Scottish Military Research Group. That way you get to know a little more about us, what our interests are, and what we're all about. The first "volunteer" is Adam Brown, who some of you may know is one of the administrators of the Group. Together with myself we are responsible for the running of the two main Projects (War Memorials and War Graves) and here Adam explains where his interest in all things military came from.

I am the wrong side of forty and as far back as I can remember I have been interested in military history. It's a long story but I think I can trace it all back to a pack of 1/32nd Airfix British Paratroops given to me when I was about five. I'll not bore you with all the details but thanks to Airfix models, 'Commando' books, and the 'Victor' and 'Battle' comics by the time I was a ten I was daft on the Second World War.

As a teenager my horizons were broadened by 'O' Grade and Higher History topics on the First World War and Nineteenth Century European revolutions and unifications. I also started putting together my own very modest collection of reference books. Growing up in East Sutherland meant any trip to Inverness included a trip to Melven's Bookshop in Union Street which always had a selection of Osprey Men-at-Arms books which were within my pocket money budget.

My student years and the years just after that were not years of plenty so book purchases tended to be from charity shops or car boot sales but it did mean I broadened my horizons further and I would read just about anything on military subjects from the Ancients up until the Falklands and First Gulf war.

That eclectic range of military subjects continues to this day and recent books on my reading pile have included books on Robert the Bruce, the Atlantic Campaign 1939-45, Earl Haig, The Berlin Wall, US Army forts in the 'Wild' West, Maps of Europe 1789 - 1914, and for light relief - Bernard Cornwell's "The Fort". I also subscribe to the BBC History magazine so I've always got a copy of that handy to dip in to.

I can probably trace my interest in war memorials back to the early 1990s. It was then that I first transcribed the names on my local memorial in Brora and started to try and find something about them. I was living 250 miles away from the memorial so I was a regular visitor to the Edinburgh Central Library to pour through old copies of Soldiers Died in the Great War and the CWGC registers. I was young, free and single and living in the Lawnmarket at the time so could visit the library every evening. There was no electronic searches in those days, I just scanned each dusty page looking for a name or a place name. As I came across another local town or place in an entry I would note the name and details down and before I knew it I was researching all the other memorials in Sutherland too. I'm not a genealogist, that doesn't interest me greatly but I am a 'delver'. I like looking through databases and registers and spent many happy hours in the back of the Central Reference Library before home PCs, CD-Roms and the internet changed the way I approached my hobby.

It wasn't just an interest in the names on a memorial though, it was an interest in the memorials as well. Perhaps the statues remind me of the Airfix soldiers from my childhood? Who knows. I guess when it comes down to it like most British males I'm a bit of an anorak but instead of trains or birds I happen to be a war memorial spotter!