19th Century – Friends of Greyfriars Kirkyard

Ann Reid

01/05/2026 Mark Hatton

“the quiet heroine of the Southside”

The thick ledger stone lying in the bottom right of this photo carries a rather special inscription. It tells us about Miss Ann Reid, who dedicated herself to improving the lives of impoverished girls. It reads as follows :

“Sacred to the memory of Miss Ann Reid, a lady of exemplary piety and extensive but unostentatious charity; who died on the 23rd Nov. 1851, aged 90 years. From the savings of a very limited income, she established and endowed in perpetuity Miss Annie Reid’s Free Female School at Wester Newington, for the education of indigent children, without exclusion of sect or persuasion, constituting destitution as the only claim to admission. The school has been carried on successfully since 1815, the girls attending it being about 50. It is now vested in certain of the magistrates of Edinburgh and the Ministers of St Cuthbert’s as Trustees. Reader, mark from this example how much good may be done with small means, by the exertions of a mind devoted to virtue, guided by a benevolent heart !”

What this stone reflects is a period of rapid growth in Edinburgh which also saw a great deal of extreme poverty. The Reid School was one effort to educate the female children living in abject poverty, to enable them to learn to read and write and obtain useful skills and thereby break the cycle of poverty. The Free school operated at 81 Causewayside, in the Newington district to the south east of Edinburgh City Centre. Reid’s School merged with others when the School Education Board took over the provision of education for all children in the late 19th century.

Miss Ann Reid dedicated a great deal of her life to improving the lives of impoverished girls. She wasn’t a wealthy male merchant with all of the power and resources needed to contribute to charity. Instead she used her limited resources, energy and passion to great effect, creating, as the gravestone states, a lovely example of what can be achieved and a lasting legacy by improving the lives of others. Apparently this gravestone was partially paid for by the women who had benefited so much from Ann Reid’s charity.

William Creech Bookseller Greyfriars Kirkyard Edinburgh

Articles, History, People

William Creech Bookseller 1745 – 1815

06/04/202630/04/2026 Mark Hatton

Twice Lord Provost of Edinburgh, but best known for his work as a publisher, including the poems of Robert Burns. William lived and worked in the Luckenbooths beside St Giles. Here he ran his printing, publishing and book selling business as well as holding his famous parties. These social events brought together the brightest intellects & characters of the time and played no little part in the enlightenment period in Edinburgh. As William’s business and political influence grew he moved to the New Town where he lived at 5 George Street until his death in 1815. William, like many other major figures in the enlightenment, never married. He is buried in the West Yard at Greyfriars.

Articles, History, People

Thomas Hunter Blair 1782 – 1840

04/04/202630/04/2026 Mark Hatton

Major General & Commander of The Bath (*), distinguished for his service in The Peninsula, Belgium & Ava. Fought at the battles of Roleija, Vimiera, Lugo, Corunna, Oporto, Talavera, Melloon & Waterloo. Severely wounded twice, he received many medals, some of which are carved on his memorial in his family lair at Greyfriars.

(*) The Order of the Bath is a British order of Chivalry founded by George I in 1725. Recipients are usually senior military officers. The name derives from the medieval ceremony of ritual bathing before being knighted.

William McGonagall Greyfriars Kirkyard Edinburgh

Articles, History, People

Where is William McGonagall?

29/03/202630/04/2026 Mark Hatton

One of the most visited memorials in Greyfriars Kirkyard is that of William McGonagall. This is in the West Yard, beside the gates to Heriot’s School. Everyday crowds of folk peer up at this modern shiny black memorial. Most come here because of the association with the Professor of Transfiguration character in Harry Potter, who bears the name Minerva McGonagall (brilliantly played by Maggie Smith in the movies).

Other visitors come here to celebrate the man who proudly bears the title of “Scotland’s Worst Poet”, or who liked to style himself later in his life as “Sir William Topaz McGonagall, Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah”. Well before Harry Potter was written, William McGonagall had legions of adoring fans, many with a rich sense of humour. These fans thought that their poetic hero should be memorialised in both Dundee (where he spent most of his life) and in Edinburgh (where he spent his final years).

He was finally recognised by the people of Dundee in 1997, who said of McGonagall that he was, “So giftedly bad, he backed unwittingly into genius” and then in 1999 they finally achieved their wish for a memorial in Edinburgh, when the shiny black plaque was installed at Greyfriars.

But why is it in this place telling the world that William McGonagall is buried “near this spot”. Let us consider how likely it is that William McGonagall is actually buried anywhere near here at all.

William’s date and place of birth is uncertain (but Ireland in 1825 seems most likely), but we know for a fact that it was in Edinburgh where he died penniless and largely forgotten at 5 South College Street in 1902. The death was duly recorded by the City as being at 4pm on 29th September 1902 as a result of a cerebral haemorrhage. However a search of the City records for details of his burial turns up nothing. Perhaps the least likely place he would have been buried in Edinburgh was the West Yard in Greyfriars. The reason being that the West Yard never had any “common burials” (being burials of the poor in unmarked graves). Furthermore, post 1870 there were no further common burials anywhere in Greyfriars. After that date the only burials here were of individual Family members of those who had long standing burial rights to use their family burial lairs. Such people were the well heeled, not the penniless poets. Non of Edinburgh’s cemeteries have a burial record for William McGonagall. It is possible he was taken to be buried in Dundee, or perhaps he was buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery, possibly Mount Vernon, Edinburgh’s Catholic Cemetery that opened in 1895.

So whilst we don’t know where William McGonagall was actually buried, it seems the most unlikely place of all would be in the West Yard at Greyfriars. So, unless you know differently, I think that modern shiny black plaque is telling us a story. But hey, we all like a good story (or poem), don’t we ?

Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo Greyfriars Kirkyard Edinburgh

Articles, History, People

Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo 1739 – 1806

29/03/202630/04/2026 Mark Hatton

We are often rather negative about Bankers, thinking of them as unproductive fat cats who get wealthy on the backs of others. But that caricature is not applicable to Sir William Forbes. Brought up in rather humble circumstances after his father died when William was just 4, William worked his way up from a being a lowly bank clerk at Coutts to becoming one of Scotland’s greatest bankers and philanthropists of the 18th century.

Brought up by his mother in a small 2 roomed house in Forrester’s Wynd in Edinburgh, his banking apprenticeship lasted four years. William impressed everyone he worked with, becoming head of Coutts Edinburgh Office in 1761. In 1763 William set up a new Banking Partnership called Forbes, Blair & Herries, Bankers which within a decade became one of the most trusted and successful banks in Scotland.

In 1770 William married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Hay of Hayston, M.D., with whom he had nine sons and seven daughters.

William was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was involved in many philanthropic projects in Edinburgh including the new High School, the Merchant Company, the Morningside Lunatic Asylum, and the Blind Asylum.

Elizabeth died in 1802 and William died in 1806 at 39 George Street in Edinburgh. William had acquired a burial vault at Greyfriars Kirkyard along the South Wall (near Mackenzie’s Mausoleum), where he and many generations of his family were buried during the 19th century.

Major Adam Davie Greyfriars Kirkyard Edinburgh

Articles, History, People

Candy Wars

16/03/202630/04/2026 Mark Hatton

Some inscriptions on memorials at Greyfriars reference forgotten wars, in remote foreign lands, involving terrible suffering. This memorial to Adam Davie, Major in His Majesty’s Service, who died a prisoner of war in the City of Candy, the Island of Ceylon, in July 1812, after 9 years captivity there, is a case in point.

Candy (or Kandy) was a Kingdom within Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka) that remained Independent by resisting British Colonial rule until 1815. There was a series of wars between 1796 and 1815 in which the British Army sought to gain control of the highlands in the centre of Ceylon. Major Adam Morries, the only son of John Davie & Mary Flint, was captured by enemy forces during one of these wars, with his soldiers being massacred after Major Adam Davie ordered them to surrender.

Major Adam Davie is known to have survived as a special prisoner of the King of Candy for at least nine years. Still wearing his tattered Major’s jacket throughout his captivity, but barefooted, he apparently never made any attempt to escape Candy and all requests to the King of Candy from the British Army for the Major’s release were refused. Davie had apparently married a Candy woman during his captivity and had children. So quite possibly he didn’t want to leave Candy, fearful of possible retributions for his actions preceding his capture. He died of a stroke in 1812.

The full rather incredible and bloody story of the wars & the events leading up to his capture are told here.

The independence of the Kandyan kingdom came to an end in 1815

Helen Blake 1818, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh

Articles, History, People

Every gravestone tells a story

09/08/202503/02/2026 Mark Hatton

Every gravestone tells a story & gives us a glimpse of lives past. How people lived, how they made their living, the society they lived in & how they died. Maybe some clues as to their personality, their hopes & fears, their beliefs & values. These are 5 quite random gravestones that caught my eye in Greyfriars today. Non have the eye catching symbolism, scale or sophistication of the large mural monuments. They are all 19th century examples, by which time headstones were simpler, narrative heavy, symbolism light designs. So why did each of these catch my eye and cause me to pause for thought ? The answers are on the caption of each of the images.

David Murray 1755 – 1832, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh — David Murray 1755 – 1832

Ok, so obviously Watchmakers can’t live forever. But maybe not ideal to describe one as a “Late Watchmaker”, as that made me think he may not have been that good at making reliable time keeping instruments ;o)

The epitaph here caught my attention. I am well used to reading long winded, gushing epitaphs that take great pains to describe the extraordinary virtues of the deceased. But here the epitaph for Helen Blake, written by her Husband, Peter Leslie, has been reduced to the following :
SHE WAS !
BUT WORDS ARE WANTING
TO SAY WHAT
THINK WHAT A WIFE SHOULD BE
AND SHE WAS THAT

Thomas McGrugar, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh — Thomas McGrugar

The boarded up windows in the background are the back rooms of The Elephant House cafe where JK Rowling sat writing Harry Potter. If she did visit the Kirkyard looking for suitable names for her characters, maybe she should have spotted and used this one. McGrugar surely would have made a good name for a Professor of Magic ;o)

Joseph Christie, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh — Joseph Christie

Joseph Christie started his career as Quartermaster Sergeant at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He then spent 25 years as the superintendent of the City Poor House, which was adjacent to Greyfriars.

William Coulter, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh — William Coulter

William Coulter was a Soldier who served two campaigns in Portugal, “gaining the esteem of his equals and the confidence of his superiors”. Sadly he fell at the Battle of Albuera in 1811 aged only 21, “bequeathing to his afflicted parents the sweet consolation that he was worthy of his Country”. The Battle of Albuera took place on May 16, 1811, near the Spanish village of Albuera, not in Portugal. It was a major clash during the Peninsular War, involving British, Spanish and Portuguese forces standing together against the French. The battle was known for its fierce fighting and high casualties, particularly among the ranks of the British infantry.