The Reverend Loutit

I spent the morning looking for the grave of one Captain Thomas Mitchell. He was born in Newburgh on Ythan in 1832, and became a captain of the Aberdeen White Star Line. He made several runs to Australia where he collected Natural History specimens which he gave to ‘Aberdeen University Museum’. He died at sea, off St Michael Island in 1870, but was brought back to Newburgh, where he is buried.

I started my search in Foveran graveyard, where several sea captains and mariners are buried, but soon discovered that I should have been in Holyrood cemetery, where I did find him.

My trip to Foveran wasn't wasted however! The Loutit memorial, in the style of an mediaeval Celtic monastic cross has just been cleaned and is looking quite spectacular. the cross was erected by the Rev. John Smeaton Loutit in memory of his son Alexander who died in 1905, aged just 17. The Rev. Loutit served as the Foveran minister for 32 years, before being killed in a car crash in 1912.

The money for the restoration of the cross came from the Parish Trust Fund, in which £200 was invested may years ago, "the interest to be used to wash the cross annually with soap and water, and to paint the letters on the cross every ten years." This time the cross was restored professionally rather than by the elbow grease of the parishioners.

An additional stipulation was that any excess money "may be used for the upkeep of gravestones in Foveran parish churchyard which belong to any minister of the parish who died prior to 1913." With the current interest rates being offered by our banks I don't see much hope of this!