Family connection

Patrick Anderson adds some more information about the Scottish National War Memorial. “The committee set up to organise the memorial met in Edinburgh on January 15 1919 and Sir Robert Lorimer was appointed as advising architect. He advised against a chapel or church and proposed a shrine and cloisters,” he says.

“The committee began fundraising and £120,000 had been raised by August 1922, including a donation of £50,000 from Mr A. P. Lyle of Glen Delvine.

“Following the Second World War, a further 50,000 names were added to the Rolls of Honour. Names for the Great War and Second World War are still to be added even all these years later.

“Not many families in Scotland were without a family death in action and, in my family, my namesake Uncle Lieutenant Patrick Wright Anderson, Black Watch, Royal Flying Corps and RAF died of his wounds in Arbroath after the end of the Great War. His name, with other relatives, is listed on the Rolls.

“The Scottish National War Memorial is open to the public free of charge with a ticket from the castle ticket office. The memorial is maintained by a charitable trust and no moneys come from the Government.

“Lt Colonel Roger J. Binks, Keeper of the Rolls at the Scottish National War Memorial, tells me that each May there is a service to commemorate the opening in 1927 held at the castle.

“An interesting footnote is that the war memorial at St Mary’s Scottish Episcopal Church in Arbroath and the chancel steps of the war memorial at the Scottish Episcopal Cathedral in Inverness were designed by Sir Robert Lorimer in the post Great War years.”