Pentland Road - 2

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) keeps records on all British service personnel, killed in the First and Second World Wars. In their files, accessible on the Internet, you can find out about the more than one million servicemen and -women who lost their lives in those conflicts. Its files are comprehensive, but not complete. This evening, with the aid of a fellow researcher elsewhere in Scotland, I traced the details of: Private NORMAN MORRISON Last address in Lewis: 10 South Dell, Service unit: 3rd Gordon Highlanders Service number: 3/5645 Date of death: 16 March 1917 at the age of 23 Died of wounds at home Local memorial: North Lewis, Cross Private Morrison is not remembered by CWGC. As soon as I have obtained the details of his burial, a case can be submitted to have Norman included on the registers of the CWGC. After 93 years (and a few days), we will finally be able to give him the honour and remembrance on the scale that he deserves. He is menti...

With reference to the Battle at Culloden, April 1746, a military historian has called for a memorial to be erected in memory of the soldiers who fought on the side of the Duke of Cumberland, in opposition to the Jacobite forces, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Not much is being made of the Red Coats, as all the attention is focused on BPC. I have previously made clear that I feel that the Jacobite prince was a royal fool and incompetent to a catastrophic degree. Whilst the clan system was already on the way out in the mid 18th century, Charlie’s actions served to give the Hannoverian forces the pretext they needed to go on the rampage in the Highlands and Islands. Culloden is often marked as the occasion which marked the end of the Scotland of old. Well, in 1707, Scotland had already ceased to be an independent nation, by virtue of the merger of the Scottish Parliament into the Westminster one in London. The rebellions by the Old Pretender in 1715 and his son...