Glenrinnes

While out researching an article on James Eadie I chanced upon this rather fine war memorial in Glenrinnes just at the foot of Ben Rinness. James was of course a brewer who made his fortune in Burton on Trent and Glenrinnes was his Scottish Estate. He had started off in the tea trade but quickly diversified into supplying malt to brewing houses before moving into the brewing of ale on a previously unheard of industrial scale and thus making his fortune. Born in 1827 he became Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Banffshire in 1900 just a year before the death of Queen Victoria and died in 1904 just 6 years after buying the estate and title.
Meanwhile of course a war in Europe was brewing. It was not to break out until nine years after James Eadies death of course but one cannot help but feel that the landed classes had in part been responsible for the slaughter which was about to decimate the youth of Scotland.
Many Scottish First War Memorials are in town centres, some are on roadsides but this one sits in the churchyard where, no doubt, the young men whose names are carved on the front would have worshipped. All died in the mud and squalor of some unworthy French or Belgian battlefield and none are buried here at the foot of the mountain which they would have seen each day as they left their front door to work on the farms and crofts of their native Banffshire.
The inscription reads “In memory of the men of Glenrinnes who died in distant and glorious fields” and there are eighteen names below.