Church pays tribute to war hero Hugh
Parishioners at St Bride’s Church have paid tribute to a Cambuslang man who gave all for his country.
Hugh McIver was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for actions near the end of World War One.
He will be commemorated later this year with a special memorial stone at the Cambuslang Garden of Remembrance.
The stone was blessed at St Bride’s last Thursday and it will stay there until it is ready to be placed in the garden.
Father Paul Morton, who took the service, said: “It went very well, it was very well attended.
“Even 100 years after he died, Hugh still has family in the area. He has great-nephews and greatnieces and this is very much a bit of living history for them.”
Hugh McIver was born in 1890 in Renfrewshire but he and his family moved to Dunlop Street in Newton when he was a youngster.
He spent his early life working in the mines but joined up to the Royal Scots 2nd Battalion (Lothian Division), two weeks after war was declared.
He won his first Military Medal in July 1916 at the Battle of the Somme and second almost exactly two years later.
On August 23, 1918, Hugh was a company runner delivering messages in battles and crisscrossing the trenches. Single handed he followed a German scout to a machine gun post, killed six soldiers, captured 20 and carried off two machine guns.
Later he saved British troops who were mistakenly being fired on by a British tank, so called “friendly-fire.” He ran to tell them of their mistake.
It was an action that would win him the VC. Sadly, he did not survive to see his heroics celebrated and was killed by a sniper on September 2, 1918.
Father Morton said: “We don’t know what he was really like but we imagine him to be a strong, resolute and very brave person, and selfless too.
“It is clear he came also from a very loving family in which he was much loved. The passage of time never diminished that love and respect that his parents, siblings and their descendants felt for him.
“The name of Hugh McIver lives on through this memorial stone. A man who showed great bravery and self-sacrifice for others and laid down his life for others. That is greater than any memorial stone, greater than any medal or earthly honour, more durable, that the tides of time cannot wash away.”
His VC medal sat for many years in St Charles’ Church in Newton. It is now at the regimental base at Edinburgh Castle where it lies to this day along with his other military medals.
A similar service was held last year at Cambuslang Parish Church for another VC recipient, John Hamilton Brown.
We imagine him to be a strong, resolute and very brave person, and selfless too