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Memorial details

Memorial type
Cross
District
East Lothian
Town
Whittingehame
County
Lothian
Country
Scotland
Commemoration
First World War (1914-1918), Second World War (1939-1945)
Ceremony
  • Unveiled
    Date: 16 October 1921
    Attended by: Mr A. J.Balfour, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
  • Dedicated
    Date: 16 October 1921
    Attended by: Rev. Marshall B. Lang, minister of the parish
  • Show More (1)
Lost
Not lost
WM Reference
89300

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Current location

opposite the Parish Church
Whittingehame
East Lothian
Lothian
EH41 4QA
Scotland

OS Grid Ref: NT 60312 73665
Denomination: Undefined

View location on Google Maps
Description
This was once a tall cross on pedestal and 3 stage base, but at some point the cross and most of the shaft have gone, and all that is left of the shaft is a dumpy, capped off remainder.
Inscription
OUR /GLORIOUS /DEAD/1914-1918/THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE/GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN/THAN THIS THAT A MAN LAY/DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS/[names]/1939-45/[name]
Inscription legible?
yes
Names on memorial
Burgess, George
Calder, George
Gray, James
Jarvis, David
Jarvis, James
Jarvis, Peter
Keller, William
Mclachlan, William
Peacock, James
Robertson, James W (rev)
See details for all 13 names
Commemorations
  • First World War (1914-1918)
    Total names on memorial: 12
    Served and returned: 0
    Died: 12
    Exact count: yes
    Information shown: surname, forenames, additional
    Order of information: Undefined
  • Second World War (1939-1945)
    Total names on memorial: 1
    Served and returned: 0
    Died: 1
    Exact count: yes
    Information shown: surname, forename
    Order of information: Undefined
Components
  • Memorial
    Measurements: Undefined
    Materials: Stone
Condition
Trust fund/Scholarship
No
Purpose: Unknown or N/A
Reference
  • warmemscot.s4.bizhat.com/viewtopic.php?t=3555&sid=b51c8db96e5e80db999737f2ca3fc202&mforum=warmemscot
  • Listed on this war memorial is Rev James Whittinghame Robertson , Lieutenant : He is in fact listed on the Ministers and Probationer Ministers Church of Scotland on the War Memorial at St Giles Church , Edinburgh 2nd Lieutenant James Whittinghame Robertson , 1/7th Bn The Black Watch killed in action 23 April 1917 , aged 29 years the son of the late Rev Dr David R Robertson and Mrs Robertson . Born Dundee . buried Brown's Corpse Cemetery , Roeux , France . 2nd Lieut J W Robertson had attended St Andrews University and was a member of the St Andrews University OTC up to circa 1913 when he went to train as a Probationer Minister . He was commissioned into the Black Watch from the ranks of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders . His elder brother , The Rev Charles Robertson was also a minister in the Church of Scotland and latterly in Edinburgh . His younger brother , Lieutenant William Stewart Robertson MC, 10th Bn The Black Watch attached 4/5th Bn The Black Watch was killed in action on 3 September 1916 aged 23 years . Son of The Rev Dr David Robertson , "elmslea", 2 Seafield Road, Broughty Ferry Forfarshire . Lt W S Robertson MC is buried in Hamel Military Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel , France . Lieut W S Robertson MC left his St Andrews university course where he was a OTC cadet for War Service in 1914 . Both 2nd Lieut J W Robertson , Black Watch and Lieut W S Robertson MC are listed on the Roll of Honour for the St Andrews University Officer Training Corps at their H Q in City Road , St Andrews Fife (nowadays Tayforth Universities OTC ) .
  • From ‘The Scotsman’ of 17th October 1921 Whittingehame AN IMPRESSIVE CEREMONY In the quiet seclusion of his home countryside, Mr A. J.Balfour, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, yesterday afternoon [16th October 1921] unveiled a war memorial at Whittingehame, East Lothian. The distinguished statesman, freed for a brief respite from his arduous duties, was among his own neighbours, and the personal note was uppermost in a ceremony that was deeply impressive in its simplicity. The unveiling was preceded by a service in Whittingehame Parish Church, outside the entrance avenue to which the memorial has been erected at the roadside. There was a crowded congregation. Every seat in the little church was occupied, and the congregation overflowed from the wide-open portals into the aisles. Through the doorways a glimpse could be obtained of the trees in which the building is embowered, beautiful in their autumnal brown and green tints. Mr Balfour, who was accompanied by Miss Balfour, the Hon. Mrs Lascelles, and Mrs Robertson, was accommodated in a pew at the rear of the church. Mr J. D. Hope, M.P., was also among those present. The service was conducted by the Rev. Marshall B. Lang, minister of the parish, assisted by the Rev. H. S. Mackenzie of Stenton Parish Church. On the conclusion of the service the congregation formed a procession, and marched from the churchyard the short distance down to the road. The ministers led the way, followed by a party of ex-service men, the children of the parish, Mr Balfour, and the members of the Whittingehame house party, and then the general members of the congregation. It was down an avenue lined by stately trees that they proceded in solemn tread to join a waiting crowd who had gathered on the roadside. The memorial, which is of red sandstone and placed in an enclosure a yard or two off the public highway takes the form of a cross of simple design, inscribed with the sceptre of St Oswald. On the front panel are the inscriptions, "Our Glorious Dead, 1914-18"—" Their name liveth for evermore”—and ' Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." On the side panels are the names of the eleven men belonging to the parish who gave up their lives for King and country. The Rev. Mr Lang invited Mr Balfour to unveil the memorial, which, he said had been erected by the parishioners A PERSONAL NOTE Mr Balfour said:- I am deeply grateful for the opportunity which has been given me to take part in this most touching and moving ceremony. Unfortunately I am rarely master of my own movements, and those who had the organisation of this gathering have kindly arranged it so that I should be able to take part. I see before me representatives from the whole parish. Two absences there are which personally come home to me. That is of my two nephews, Frank and Oswald, known to all of you brought up here, and who in the great war bore their share of wounds and of dangers. Unfortunately wide seas separate us now. They are serving their country far from this scene, and though I doubt not that their thoughts are with us, we are denied their bodily presence. Others there are doubtless, of whom I have heard nothing, who are prevented from being here and taking their part in the ceremony, but I would fain hope that not only all the relations of those whose greatness and fame we are here commemorating, but also those who were their brothers in arms during the war, have found it possible to be present. Is it not an occasion which necessarily and deeply moves us to the very centre of our being? All of you have read accounts of the more than regal ceremonies which attended the sepulture in Westminster Abbey of the Unknown Warrior. Unkown indeed he is, but the nation took him as a symbol of all who had perished in the great cause by land or sea, and round his remains and in the ceremony by which the sepulture was accompanied, all Britain expressed symbolically what was felt with regard to those who had sacrificed their lives in the cause of their country. Here we are met together with something of a more personal note. It is not an unknown warrior that we have met here to commemorate; it is those who were known to all of us, who moved in our midst, were our friends or our acquaintances, and who left at one period or another of the Great war—many of them very early in the day, perceiving by a kind of intuition the great services that were required of them. It is for them, and, as it were, in their personal honour, that we are met here to-day, and here we welcome those, their own relatives, who suffered irreparable loss when they were taken away, but who, at all events, have the consolation of knowing that their, names will be recorded, and are recorded, in history, and that their neighbours have shown their deep recognition of all that they did for their country and for us by erecting this memorial in their honour. Time. I trust, has softened the inevitable misery of separation, but no time can efface the outlines or dim the writing which records that their sons' or their brothers have earned for themselves the undying gratitude of those who knew them best THE UNSHAKABLE FOUNDATION OF VICTORY. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a personal memorial. It is a memorial given by their neighbours to those whom they knew personally and individually , but, believe me, it has a wider reference, a more extended significance. None of us standing here -scarcely even the children whose memories must be a little faint, about what occurred even three or four years ago - are likely ever to have effaced from our memories the trials, the dangers, the anxieties, the defeats, the victories, and the final triumph of the greatest of all wars. Which of us is likely to underrate the share which Scotland has borne, with the whole of Britain and with the whole of the British Empire, in the great struggle which came to an end on 11th November 1918? Which of us, reading these names, can ever have obliterated from our minds the long stories of the hardship and triumphs of the Armies in France, the more distant glories of Mesopotamia, all that was suffered, all that was lost, and, let me add, all that was gained by the sacrifices at the Dardanelles, all that the British Fleet did to sustain the Allied cause? None of us are likely to forget it. None of us, at all events, living, as we do, in sight of the Firth of Forth, are likely to doubt what history will inevitably and amply prove - the great thesis that it was the British Navy which made the victory of the British Army and the Allied Armies possible, and it was upon that unshakable foundation that the whole victory of the Allies rested. That is the broad way, in which we who have lived through those eventful years look at it. As time goes on, as those who took part, either as spectators or actors, in the great drama, one by one are removed from the scene, no doubt these memorials will have their outline somewhat softened, the sharpness of recollection will vanish, and those great things will fall into the charge of the historian. Do not suppose that when that time comes, the value of this memorial will be otherwise than increased. We do not require a memorial to keep us in mind of the devoted men who have sacrificed their lives for us, but when we are gone and when strangers pass along that road, seeing this monument and' reading the names recorded thereon, they will say to themselves one of two things. A TWO-FOLD ASPECT. I know not what the state of the world will be when the period that I am speaking of comes upon us, but if our most sanguine hopes are fulfilled, and if the strenuous labours and unfaltering faith of men of goodwill really do contrive to introduce some less barbarous method of dealing with international disputes than international butchery, then the traveller will say, looking at this monument, “These are the names of men who by fighting and suffering and losing their lives in this greatest of all wars have given us and the world perpetual peace." May that happen! I am one of the sanguine ones, I am one of those who think that as civilisation advances it will become more and more intolerable that the world should go through from time to time anything like the agonies from which, we have just issued. But supposing that in my sanguine moments I am deceived, as well I may be. Then will monument have lost its value, will its moral be deprived of its essential point? Believe me, no. If so it happens that the infamous passion for domination which was the cause of this war, and which for the moment we stamped but, if that should again raise its head, if that should, again threaten the peace and liberties of the world, if again we are threatened, or our children, out grandchildren, or our great-grandchildren are threatened by a renewal of the horrors from which we have escaped, then men will turn to monuments like this, and will say, "In the time of our fathers or grandfathers all the greatest interests of humanity were threatened and hung for a time suspended in the balance. Then they showed of what mettle they were made; they came forward and threw back the wave of invasion which was likely to overwhelm all that was most valued. And they will say to themselves, "If a like trial comes upon us, if we in our turn have to sacrifice ourselves for a great cause, shall we do less well than those whose immortal memory is preserved upon this monument?” Mr Balfour after unveiling the monument said: —May this monument which I have just unveiled remain for all time as a record of what the men in this parish, could do and did in the greatest crisis in the-world's history. Prayer was thereafter offered by the Rev. Mr Lang, followed by the playing of a lament by pipers and the sounding of the “Last Post” by a trumpeter. A large laurel wreath was placed in front of the memorial by Mr. Balfour. Beautiful floral wreaths were, also laid down by the ' ladies from Whittingehame, and other floral .tributes by relatives of those whose names were commemorated. The singing of the National Anthem brought the proceedings to a close Back to top

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