Old Photograph Dugald Buchanan Monument Kinloch Rannoch Scotland

Old photograph of the Dugald Buchanan monument in Kinloch Rannoch in Highland Perthshire, Scotland. The church is All Saints Scottish Episcopal Church. The obelisk is not a war memorial, but is inscribed: " In memory of Dugald Buchanan the Rannoch schoolmaster, evangelist and sacred poet, died 24th June 1768 ". The memorial is dated 1875. Dugald Buchanan born 1716 was a teacher and an evangelist, preaching at large open air meetings, which upwards of 500 people attended. He showed great courage as he persuaded the 'wild men' of Rannoch to give up their lawlessness and savage ways. He and his wife taught them new trades and crafts. They worked with James Small, formerly an Ensign in Lord Loudoun's Regiment, who had been appointed by the Commissioners for the Forfeited Estates to run the Rannoch estates which had been seized from the clan chieftains who had supported the Jacobites. The tiny hamlet at the east end of Loch Rannoch, now known as Kinloch Rannoch, was enlarged and settled, mainly by soldiers being discharged from the army, but also by displaced crofters. Buchanan and minister James Stuart of Killin, sponsored by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK), carried out the first translation of the New Testament into Gaelic. Their translation, begun in 1755, was completed and published in 1767. Following the unsuccessful Jacobite rebellion of 1745, the Gaelic language had been proscribed, and all schools in the Highlands were required to teach only in English. Buchanan and Stuart's translation was significant in that it was accompanied by a shift by the SSPCK and other educational authorities back to Gaelic as the language of education of Highland Scottish children. This played a major part in promoting literacy in the language.

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