Dundee Courier - Friday 06 August 1920
CAPUTH WAR MEMORIAL UNVEILED
BY THE DUKE OF ATHOLL
(list of names)
PERTHSHIRE ADVERTISER: 11.08.1920
CAPUTH WAR MEMORIAL
PRINCIPLES FOR WHICH LOCAL MEN FELL
UNVEILING CEREMONY
On the evening of Thursday last there was unveiled, before a very large and representative turnout of people, the local war memorial in memory of the 33 heroes belonging to the parish who made the supreme sacrifice for King and country, and in the defence of the principles of liberty, righteousness and peace.
That monument which is erected at the head of Kirk Brae - an ideal situation - partakes of the nature of the “Grand Cross” erected on a circular flat base with three steps in front and a semi-circular parapet rising behind to the height of about four feet. The wall is panelled into five divisions, and on these five panels are inscribed the names of the fallen - the lettering being in bronze - the most durable form.
Carved oak leaves are engraved at the head of the cross, and the front face is ornamented with a sword carved in relief. Affixed to the lower part of the cross is a brass plate bearing the words - “To the memory of the men of Caputh Parish who gave their lives for their country in the Great War, 1914-1918. Their name liveth for ever more”.
The memorial which was designed by Mr A.G. Heiton, architect, Perth is of red Doddingtone stone - the most durable in this country.
While the company was assembling Pipers Duthie and Wilkie, Dunkeld, played “The Heroes of Magerstfontein” and other bagpipe airs. The proceedings were opened by a very appropriate Scripture reading, and a dedication of great beauty and sublimity by the Rev. Kenneth O. MacLeod, minister of the parish.
Mr Alex. P. Lyle of Glendelvine, who was chairman of the Memorial Committee, said that they had inscribed on their memorial the names of 33 men whose claims were admitted as properly attaching to the district, and when those lives were spent in the awful struggle from which they had so recently emerged.
The epitaph chosen for their memorial were the words taken from the Apocryphal Book of Ecclesiastics: Their name liveth for ever more.
Poetically that was true, but to make it literally so was beyond the power of mankind, for wind and rain, and sometimes, too, the carelessness of man brought all their works sooner or later, whether in a period to be remembered by hundreds of years or thousands of years to dust again. But they had done what they could to make these names live for ever by inscribing them in letters of enduring bronze. The cross of the memorial was the symbol of sacrifice, the sculptured sword on it recalled that it was not in comfortable surroundings or placid old age that death laid his hand on them, but in the midst of strife and suffering. To the relatives of those brave men it must be some comfort to know that they for whom their lives were given were not ungrateful and that for years to come the passer-by would stop a moment on his way to read the names of those they were that day honouring.
When His Grace had unveiled the memorial the pipers would play “The Flowers of the Forest”, the words of which lament were composed in honour of so much of the best blood of Scotland, spilled some four hundred years ago on Flodden Field, and appropriate on that occasion, with the difference between the two cases that, heroes as they were, and splendidly as they fought, the men of Flodden gave their lives in defeat, while those they now commemorated gave theirs in a war that ended in victory. (Applause)
The Duke of Atholl said that they did not look upon these memorials as tombstones specially connected with the dead, but rather as reminders to succeeding generations of the splendid spirit of self -sacrifice which imbued the whole nation during the deathly struggle, especially exemplified in the names of those who fell, and as tokens of thankfulness on the part of the present generation. Sorrow there must be in parting, but Providence gave them the great compensation in the war of feeling pride in the splendid achievements of those who fell. The thought of how gladly they gave up all, even unto Death, on behalf of their country, must remain a precious memory to those who knew and loved them. Their monument showed the sword with its point down - the sign of work in the field of battle accomplished.
The cross would remind them not only of the sacrifice of the lads they knew, but the sacrifice of the Lord of all mankind, and of the hope of the life to come. Might it long stand there as an emblem of duty nobly done, and a reminder to the people that it was only by their strength and readiness to defend the honour and liberty of country, that they could with the help of God, stand as a nation. If they forgot those things, they had no right to hope or expect to exist as a nation, and the gift of being the defenders of liberty and justice in the world must pass to others. And if they also remembered that it was the spirit of true comradeship and self-negation that carried them through the war, and if they tried to bring it more into their daily lives, he felt that even the ghastly and horrible time through which they had passed would not have been spent in vain.
His Grace then, saluting the memorial and Union Jack, said:- “I now unveil this cross to the glory of God and to the memory of those men of the Parish of Caputh who, between the years 1914-1918 fell in the Great War”.
“The Flowers of the Forest” was played by the pipers, after which the Paraphrase “O God of Bethel” was sung.
Perthshire Advertiser - Wednesday 07 June 1950 Page 8
Caputh Remembers
(photograph)
Perthshire Advertiser - Wednesday 07 June 1950 Page 7
War Memorials Unveiled at Caputh