The Museum of Edinburgh at Huntly House on Cannongate has a gravestone which they believe was originally at Greyfriars Kirkyard. The gravestone records the names, ages and years of death as Helen Alexander, who died in 1729 aged 75 years & her husband, James Currie, who died in 1736 aged 80 years. The museum notice accompanying this gravestone provides a few inaccurate statements about it. It says this gravestone was believed to have originally been raised at Greyfriars and that James Currie was a Stonemason who carved the Covenanters Martyrs Monument at Greyfriars and that the gravestone features tools of a Stonemason. Non of these statements appear to be correct.
James was not a Stonemason, but a successful Merchant and together with his Wife, Helen, they collected a large number of testaments from Covenanters facing the death penalty in Edinburgh. This collection included sermons, speeches, writings and comments by many Covenanters dating from the 1650’s through to the 1690’s. James published this collection in a book that ran to over 780 pages.
James & Helen were primarily responsible for raising the first Martyrs Monument at Greyfriars. They came up with the idea, petitioned the Council, raised the funding and quite possibly drafted the inscription.
They died at the grand ages of 75 & 80 respectively and were buried in their Parish at Old Pentland. Their gravestone is an impressive example of the type produced in the 1730’s, carved on all 4 faces. Such headstones were not allowed at Greyfriars in that period as only mural (wall mounted) monuments and burial lairs were allowed arranged around the perimeter of the burial ground, with no freestanding headstones allowed on the grass until around 1750. This was because the volume of burials at Greyfriars was so great, headstones would have got in the way. The headstone symbols on James & Helen’s stones are the standard Memento Mori, skull, cross bones, scythe, with the gravedigger’s tools of spade, turf cutter & pick axe. The museum appears to have mistaken these for the tools of a Stonemason.
Attached are photos of each face of the headstone, plus the information panel. A photo of the book James & Helen published together with a newspaper article that recounts their story.
Friends of Greyfriars Kirkyard 