The archive at The Black Watch Castle and Museum holds a wide range of material relating to the service of the 42nd Regiment. This includes photographs, records and other items that help us to better understand the men who served. This blog focuses on a photograph of five Sergeants of the 42nd, thought to date … Read more
The Volunteer movement can tell us a great deal about British society and how it responded to external threats during the nineteenth century, and it also played a part in the developing identity of The Black Watch as a regiment. As Project Archivist at The Black Watch Castle and Museum, I have recently been cataloguing … Read more
Marking 300 Years Since Their Formation By Pipe Major Alistair Duthie, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) Association. The origins of what became The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) can be traced back 300 years to a period of instability in the Scottish Highlands following the Jacobite Rising of 1715. With local authority weakened, criminal activity … Read more
Written by David Meldrum Lowe This is a skeletal history of my father (Pte John Murray Lowe 1904-1948, Service Number: 2976159 – POW Number: 36782) who suffered great loss in his young life, served with two of Scotland’s most famous Regiments and suffered greatly at the hands of the Germans as a POW in WW2. … Read more
This blog was written by Freya, one of our three young volunteers who contributed to our special exhibition, ‘Captive Voices’. Freya will be attending university this autumn to study History. Private Ronald ‘Ron’ Wheeldon was born on 24th June 1926 in Mosborough, Sheffield. Coming from a mining family, Wheeldon chose a different path, finding work … Read more
Written by Captain (Retired) Alan McEwen MBE Having never read or studied the works of Robert Burns throughout my early years at home or my public schooling years in Dundee, it was not until I joined 1st Battalion The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) in 1979 at the age of 21 that I began to … Read more
The Black Watch Museum archive holds a considerable quantity of primary source material relating to the Battle of Loos, 24th September 1915. This event has significant resonance to both the regiment and the region, in particular to the City of Dundee which, to this day, still commemorates the battle and losses felt by the city. … Read more
In early summer of 2016 by happy chance, I stumbled across a request for volunteers at the forthcoming Weeping Window: Poppies exhibition at the Black Watch Castle and Museum; I was thrilled. I had seen the poppies on television, but didn’t to London to see them at the Tower; didn’t even manage to buy a … Read more
By chance, I read the local paper and saw an article looking for volunteers for the forthcoming Poppies: Weeping Window exhibition at the Museum. Whether it was due to my recent memory of the huge London exhibition or because I had once attended a local army run school years ago or both, I decided to … Read more
It has been an honour and a privilege to have been involved as a poppy partner through the Summer.My Father and his two brothers served in WW 2 and one did not return from El Alamein. My three great uncles served in the first war and one died at Ypres and ,on a visit to … Read more
