The Scottish Genealogy Society

Officers of the Seaforth Highlanders

HM The King's Levee of 22 March 1935 at Buckingham Palace. The officer in the middle of the front row is believed to be Major General Sir A B Ritchie KBE CB CMG. The tall officer on his right (i.e. left in the photograph) is Lieutenant A J H Cassels (subsequently Field Marshal Sir James). The officer, peering over General Ritchie's left shoulder is Lieutenant I S Tailyour. The Regimental Magazine (Cabar Feidh, Vol VII, No 54 of June 1935) records the occasion thus: "The King was represented by HRH The Prince of Wales. Apart from any other consideration, the Regiment has every cause to feel proud that our Colonel-in-Chief represented the King at a levee at which eight officers of The Seaforth Highlanders were presented. But our pride need not rest at this thought. The Prince was in the uniform of Colonel-in-Chief of The Seaforth Highlanders. Surely the Regiment must be intensely proud of this compliment, so graciously given to us. It is believed that this is the first time in the annals of our Regimental history, that the uniform of The Seaforth Highlanders has been worn by the King or his representative at a Levee. The following officers were presented at this Levee by the Colonel of the Regiment, Major Genl Sir a B Ritchie, KBE, CB, CMG.- Lieut-Colonel J E Laurie, DSO; Captain C R Wombwell, Captain I R L Fraser, Lieutenant K MacKessack, Lieutenant I K Macrae, Lieutenant A J H Cassels, Lieutenant I S Tailyour, 2/Lieutenant R H S Cassels. After the ceremony all the said officers wrote their names in the books of HRH The Prince of Wales, HRH the Duke of Connaught and HRH the Duke of Kent."

History

The Society was founded in Edinburgh in 1953* to promote research into Scottish Family History and to advance and encourage the collection, exchange and publication of material relating to Scottish genealogy and family history. The founding members soon began to collect printed books, manuscripts and pedigrees and now, after many travels, in its own premises and having passed its 50th anniversary, the Society houses an important library which is constantly being added to. We now also have an extensive collection of microfilm and microfiche of Old Parish Registers and Census Returns. A quarterly magazine, The Scottish Genealogist, was begun in 1954, first in typescript but soon afterwards in print. The magazine is exchanged with overseas societies' journals and with those of the local Scottish societies that have come into existence since 1953.

A Dictionary of Emigrant Scots was begun by the late Donald J. Macdonald and then by Donald Whyte who produced volumes for the U.S.A. and Canada. The Society was a pioneer in the recording of tombstone inscriptions and their publication and this work continues. From time to time, the Society publishes works of a genealogical nature e.g. the Perthshire Hearth Tax of the 1690s and The Naming and Numbering of Scottish Regiments of Foot, Cavalry and Militia.

*The following is an extract from the January 1954 issue of The Scottish Genealogist:

'Mr. Sidney Cramer** of Dundee, Scotland, had found difficulty making contact with others interested in genealogical research. He resolved on the formation of a society possessing its own specialised library. His preliminary step was to circularise some 500 newspapers within the British Commonwealth of Nations and the Americas, from which he obtained many interesting replies. At a later date, letters appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News. This interest occasioned the Inaugural Meeting at 13 Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh***, on Saturday, May 30th 1953.'

**Sidney Cramer (1911-1996) was a Jew of Russian and Lithuanian extraction whose father became a naturalised British citizen in 1909. He served in the Seaforth Highlanders, the Cheshire Regiment and the Royal Artillery but had a nervous breakdown and became partly disabled following his experiences in mountain warfare and a bout of tropical fever. He subsequently went into business as an alterations tailor, firstly in Dundee and later in Edinburgh. He devoted much of his time to recording monumental inscriptions and some of his work was later published by the Society in 'Pre-1855 Gravestone Inscriptions in Angus'. In 1973 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists. He was a talented violinist and also played the trombone. He died on 6th January 1996 in Livingston.

Ma sh'sanu 'aleykha al ta'ase l'haverkha - Hillel the Elder, 1st century BC.
(That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.)

***Home of the late Rolland J. B. Munro.

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