MONUMENTS and MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS in SCOTLAND, VOLUME 1, 1871.
by the Rev. Charles Rogers
PARISH OF BATHGATE
The parish churchyard surrounds the ruin of the old church. A new cemetery was laid out in 1860. In the churchyard a covenanter, who was shot by a dragoon on the dispersion of a conventicle held in the parish, is commemorated by a tombstone inscribed thus:-
Here lies the body of James Davie, who was shot at Blackdub, April 1673, by Heron, for his adhering to the word of God and Scotland’s convenated work of reformation in opposition to Popery, prelacy, perjury, and tyranny. Repaired by a few men in this parish.
Tombstones commemorate the incumbents of the parish undernamed:- The Rev. George Blackwell, who died 7th April, 1749, in his thirty-sixth year and fourteenth of his ministry; the Rev. Thomas Wardrobe, who died on the 7th May, 1756, aged forty-one; the Rev. Walter Jardine, who died 30th November, 1811, in the seventy-second year of his age and thirty-first of his ministry; the Rev. Samuel Martin, minister of the parish from 1825 to 1843, and afterwards minister of the Free Church, Bathgate, who died 15th May, aged forty-eight; and the Rev. John Byers, minister of the parish, who died 26th June, 1861, aged seventy-two.
A tombstone celebrates the Rev. John Fleming of Craigs, minister of Colinton, who died on the 23rd January, 1823, aged seventy-three. One of his ancestors having suffered persecution from the Stuart dynasty, Mr. Fleming held views on civil politics bordering on republicanism. He bequeathed £240 for the education of a number of free scholars at Colinton Parish School. The bulk of his estate he conveyed to trustees for behoof of his relatives, but provisionally for establishing Professorships of Political Economy in the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Monuments commemorate John Tennant of Mosside, who died September 10th, 1740, aged seventy-nine; George Norvell, of Boghall, who died June, 1725; Robert Geddes, of Torbanehill, born 12th April, 1744, died January, 1792; Thomas Durham, of Boghead, died 24th July, 1750; John Ranken, of Inchcross, died January 1st, 1819; and Alexander Fleming, Tenant at Kirkroads, father of the late Professor Fleming of the New College, Edinburgh. Monumental enclosures belong to the families of Calder of Drumcross; Dennistoun of Barbaughlaw, Sandilands of Couston; and Majoribanks, of Majoribanks and Balbardie.
A monumental statue is being reared in honour of the late Professor Sir James Young Simpson, Bart., a native of the parish.
Bathgate Old Times 