Sir Allan MacDonald Gilmour | |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | Uncle Allan |
Born | Edinburgh | 23 November 1916
Died | 22 September 2003 86)[ citation needed ] Bonar Bridge | (aged
Buried | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Rank | Colonel |
Unit | Royal West African Frontier Force |
Commands held | Gold Coast Regiment |
Battles/wars | Second Battle of El Alamein Battle of Wadi Akarit |
Awards | Military Cross KCVO |
Alma mater | Trinity College, Oxford |
Other work | Chairman of Sutherland District Council Highland Regional Council member Chairman, Highland Health Board Chairman, East Sutherland Council of Social Service Queen's Lord Lieutenant for Sutherland |
Colonel Sir Allan MacDonald Gilmour of Invernauld, KCVO OBE MC of Rosehall, was a British soldier and politician. He was also the former lord lieutenant of Sutherland.
He was popularly called "Uncle Allan" and was well known for the North African campaign against General Rommel. [1]
Allan Gilmour was the only son of his father, Captain Allan Gilmour [2] of Rosehall and Mary Macdonald of Portree. Captain Gilmour died at the age of 28 years from injuries sustained in Salmah, Macedonia, a year after his son was born. He served with the Lovat Scouts in the First World War Dardanelles campaign. He received his primary education at Cargilfield Preparatory School in Edinburgh and proceeded to Winchester College for his secondary school studies. He attended Trinity College, Oxford, where he read history. [1]
Gilmour joined the Lovat Scouts in 1937 where he obtained his commission. He then joined the Seaforth Highlanders in 1939. Between 1942 and 1943, he was with the 2nd Seaforth in the 51st Highland Division of the 8th Army in the North Africa campaign. He was awarded the Military Cross at the Second Battle of El Alamein, with a Bar to the MC for further displays of courage in the face of the German Afrika Korps at the Battle of Wadi Akarit. He took part in the invasion of Sicily. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1943. From 1944, he served in Normandy, the Netherlands, and in Germany where he received the Distinguished Service Cross from the United States. [1]
Following the Second World War, he had various staff appointments. He also served with the British Army of the Rhine and later became a military and infantry instructor in the Middle East and Pakistan. He also served in Aden. [1] He served as Chief of staff of the Ghana Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. [3] [4] He also served in the Congo. One of his last appointments was with the 11th Seaforth Highlanders (TA). At the time of his retirement in 1967, he was a Colonel of the Queens Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons) from Headquarters, Scottish Command, Edinburgh. [1]
Gilmour was elected as a member of Sutherland County Council in 1970. he was elected as the first chairman of the new Sutherland District Council in 1974, a position he held until 1987. He continued on the Housing Committee until prior to the elections in 1994. He represented the Dornoch, Creich, and Kincardine wards on the Highland Regional Council at its inception in 1974. He was also on the Highland Health Board and was its chairman from 1985 to 1987. He has also served as the chairman of the East Sutherland Council of Social Service and as a board member of the Scottish National Orchestra Society. He has also chaired the Highland River Purification Board. He was appointed deputy lieutenant for Sutherland in 1971 and the Queen's lord lieutenant in 1972. He received his knighthood (KCVO) in 1991. [1]
Gilmour had his tie caught in his fan belt at Bonar Bridge on his way to a meeting at Dornoch. A French couple noticed his predicament and rescued him. His friends subsequently bought him lots of bow-ties to prevent a repeat. [1]
He married Jean Wood, who was from a Seaforth Highlander family in Nairn in 1941. They had three sons and a daughter. [1] She died in a fire in 2015. [5] [6] After his retirement, they settled at his home, Invernauld House at Sutherland. [1]
He died at age 86 at Migdale Hospital, Bonar Bridge. He was buried at the Invershin Cemetery, Creich, Sutherland, next to his mother.[ citation needed ]
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, nicknamed the Fox, was a Scottish Jacobite and Chief of Clan Fraser of Lovat, known for his feuding and changes of allegiance. In 1715, he had been a supporter of the House of Hanover, but in 1745 he changed sides and supported the Stuart claim on the crown of Great Britain. Lovat was among the Highlanders defeated at the Battle of Culloden and convicted of high treason against the Crown, following which he was sentenced to death and subsequently executed. He became the last man in Britain to be beheaded.
Sutherland is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the Highlands of Scotland. Its county town is Dornoch. Sutherland borders Caithness and Moray Firth to the east, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire to the south and the Atlantic to the north and west. Like its southern neighbour Ross-shire, Sutherland has some of the most dramatic scenery in Europe, especially on its western fringe where the mountains meet the sea. These include high sea cliffs and very old mountains composed of Precambrian and Cambrian rocks.
Fort George is a large 18th-century fortress near Ardersier, to the north-east of Inverness in the Highland council area of Scotland. It was built to control the Scottish Highlands in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745, replacing a Fort George in Inverness constructed after the 1715 Jacobite rising to control the area. The current fortress has never been attacked and has remained in continuous use as a garrison.
Bonar Bridge is a village on the north bank of the Kyle of Sutherland to the west and the Dornoch Firth to the east in the Parish of Creich in the Highland council area of Scotland.
The Battle of Glen Shiel took place on 10 June 1719 in the Scottish Highlands, during the Jacobite rising of 1719. A Jacobite army composed of Highland levies and Spanish marines was defeated by British government troops.
The Lovat Scouts was a British Army unit first formed during the Second Boer War as a Scottish Highland yeomanry regiment. They were the first known military unit to wear a ghillie suit, and were renowned for their elite reconnaissance capabilities. In 1916, the Lovat Scouts formally became the British Army's first sniper unit, then known as "sharpshooters". The regiment served in the First World War and Second World War.
George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland, KT, PC, styled Earl Gower until 1892 and Marquess of Stafford between 1892 and 1913, was a British courtier, patron of the film industry and Conservative party politician from the Leveson-Gower family. He held minor office in the Conservative administration of Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin in the 1920s and was later Lord Steward of the Household from 1935 to 1936. As a noted patron of the British film industry, the Sutherland Trophy, awarded by the British Film Institute, is named in his honour.
Sir Robert Munro, 6th Baronet was a Scottish military officer and politician whose life followed an 18th-century pattern. He fought in support of the Revolution Settlement and the House of Hanover, and their opposition to all attempts by the Jacobites to restore the House of Stuart either by force of arms or by political intrigue. He was killed at the Battle of Falkirk Muir in 1746.
The Royal Regiment of Scotland (SCOTS) is the senior and only current Scottish line infantry regiment of the British Army Infantry. It consists of three regular and two reserve battalions, plus an incremental company, each formerly an individual regiment. However, three regular battalions maintain their former regimental pipes and drums to carry on the traditions of their antecedent regiments.
Loudon's Highlanders, or the 64th Highlanders, or Earl of Loudon's Regiment of Foot, was an infantry regiment of the British Army.
Lieutenant General Sir Chandos Blair, was a senior British Army officer who served as General Officer Commanding Scottish Command from 1972 to 1976.
Rosehall is a remote hamlet in the Parish of Creich near the confluence of the River Cassley and the River Oykel, 1 mile northwest of Altass, in Sutherland, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland. It is the site of the main road bridge over the Cassley, which is just downstream from the Achness Waterfall, commonly known simply as the Cassley Falls.
The siege of Brahan took place in Scotland in November 1715 and was part of the Jacobite rising of 1715. Highlanders loyal to the British-Hanoverian government of George I of Great Britain laid siege to Brahan Castle, seat of William Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Seaforth, who was a staunch Jacobite, loyal to the House of Stuart.
The plan of raising a fencible corps in the Highlands was first proposed and carried into effect by William Pitt the Elder, in the year 1759. During the three preceding years, both the fleets and armies of Great Britain had suffered reverses, and it was thought that a "home guard" was necessary as a bulwark against invasion.
The Independent Highland Companies were irregular militia raised from the Scottish clans of the Scottish Highlands by order of the British government between 1603 and 1760 in order to help keep the peace and enforce the law in the Highlands and were recognized as such by the government. The officers of the Independent Highland Companies were commissioned as officers of the British Army but the Independent Companies were not recognized as official regiments of the line of the army. The Independent Highland Companies were the progenitors of the Highland Regiments of the British Army that began when ten Independent Highland Companies were embodied to form the Earl of Crawford's Highland Regiment that was numbered the 43rd Regiment of Foot in 1739.
The New Year Honours 1910 were appointments by King Edward VII to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by members of the British Empire. They were announced on 4 January 1910.
Colonel Sir Donald Hamish Cameron of Lochiel, was a British Army officer, chartered accountant, landowner and the 26th Lochiel of Clan Cameron in the Scottish Highlands. He served as commanding officer of the Lovat Scouts throughout the Second World War. He succeeded his father as Chief of the Camerons in 1951 and later served as Lord Lieutenant of Inverness.
The Battle of Dornoch took place on 20 March 1746 and was part of the Jacobite rising of 1745 in Scotland. However, although recorded in history as a "battle" there was no actual fighting between the two sides. Instead a large rebel Jacobite force advanced on a position held by a force loyal to the British-Hanoverian Government who were taken by surprise and forced into a retreat. The Jacobite advance was coordinated by James Drummond, 3rd Duke of Perth at Dornoch, Sutherland.
George Mackay, 3rd Lord Reay (1678–1748), was a Scottish noble and chief of the Clan Mackay, a Scottish clan of the Scottish Highlands. During his life the Glorious Revolution took place which directly affected his family and estate, and during his chiefdom he served the British-Hanoverian Government during the Jacobite rising of 1715 and the Jacobite rising of 1745.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Stirling of Garden, is a retired Scottish army officer and chartered surveyor, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Stirling and Falkirk from 1983 to 2005.