Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

‘Conduct beyond praise’: the story of Sutherland’s only WW1 VC winner

It’s November 20 1917 and the Battle of Cambrai has begun.

The idea is to take Cambrai in Northern France and cut off supplies to the German defence lines.

All hell has broken loose and the casualties are mounting.

For 1/5 Seaforth Highlanders, the mission is to capture the village of Ribecourt.

Lance Corporal Robert McBeath’s company has encountered a barrage of enemy machine gun fire, and his patrol is answering a call for volunteers to deal with it.

L/Cpl Robert McBeath. Supplied by Angus MacKay

Picture the 19-year-old Seaforth Highlander armed with a Lewis gun and a revolver breaking away from the patrol.

Off he goes, alone albeit supported by a tank, and twists and weaves his way towards the source of the enemy fire.

He shoots one of five machine gunners, and with the tank following, attacks the rest, driving them to ground in their deep dug-out.

He then rushes in after them, flushes them out to a waiting British tank, and captures three officers and thirty men.

A tank similar to this would have covered L/Cpl McBeath as he rushed towards the machine gun nest. This one, at Arras, is stuck in the mud with infantry attempting to dig it out.

All in a day’s work for the young Kinlochbervie shepherd who had lied about his age to sign up in 1914.

There would be more than 10,000 casualties in the Battle of Cambrai, 49,000 wounded and almost 17,000 missing or prisoners of war.

Dead soldiers on the battlefield killed during the Battle Of Cambrai, November-December 1917.

McBeath’s actions were pivotal in the capture of Ribecourt, and earned him a Victoria Cross.

His citation simply notes: “The conduct of L/Cpl. McBeath throughout three days of severe fighting was beyond praise.”

Robert McBeath outside Buckingham Palace after receiving his VC, with Roderick MacLeod, president of the Gaelic Society of London, January 1918.  Daily Mail Picture Library

Not only was McBeath the youngest Scottish Victoria Cross recipient during the First World War, he was the only one from Sutherland.

He would go on to exhibit conspicuous bravery again on civvy street four years later – but that time it would be fatal.

McBeath and his pal Alex MacDonald from Scourie had joined up as soon as war broke out, travelling to Golspie and enlisting with the 5th battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders, McBeath claiming to be 19 instead of his true age, 16.

They saw action in France a year later; and in November 1916 McBeath was wounded in the Battle of Ancre Heights, part of the Battle of the Somme.

Four months later he was back on the Western Front, promoted to Lance Corporal.

Troops of the 11th Leicester Regiment (6th Divison) with machine guns in captured 2nd line trench at Ribecourt, during the battle of Cambrai, November 20, 1917

After the announcement of his VC in January 1918, McBeath was given extended leave  and eventually released from the military in 1919.

The Victoria Cross won by L/Cpl Robert McBeath, Kinlochbervie at the Highlanders’ Museum in Fort George.   Sandy McCook

Hero’s homecoming

Meanwhile his achievements were not lost on the folks back home, and thanks to research by staff at Kinlochbervie High school, we now know a lot about what happened to McBeath on his hero’s return home.

Paula Macleod and Margaret Meek led a project to preserve McBeath’s memory in a booklet ‘A Sutherland Man/ Fear à Cataich’.

They found out that two Golspie women, Jean MacDonald of the Sutherland Arms Hotel and Helen Macaulay of Bank House, started a campaign to raise funds to honour McBeath.

“They argued that ‘such bravery should not be allowed to pass into the region of memory only, without suitable recognition of his indomitable pluck and disregard of personal danger, which resulted single-handed in the breaking up of a particularly strong and dangerous enemy post, and the capture of 3 enemy officers and 30 men besides numerous guns.”

They managed to raise £367 in war bonds and a gold watch to be presented to the local hero when he finally made it home on February 12 1918.

The sum of £60 was also raised by the Lairg parish of Eddrachilles, of which £10 was used to buy a magnificent silver tea service to commemorate his marriage in Edinburgh on February 19 to childhood sweetheart Barbara MacKay of Drumnaguie, Kinlochbervie and Badcall, Scourie.

Barbara McBeath, wife of Robert McBeath VC around the time of her marriage in 1918. Supplied by Angus MacKay

The weather stepped in and snow stopped him getting past Lairg, so he headed to Golspie where Jean MacDonald and Helen Macaulay made sure he had a hero’s welcome.

He visited Golspie High School and the offices of the Northern Times.

Their subsequent article, Always a Daring Spirit, gives an insight into McBeath’s character.

“Those who knew the VC intimately say that the daring deeds that gained for him the VC are just in keeping with the daring spirit he has shown all his life.

“Bob, as he is familiarly called by his intimates, was up to all sorts of pranks in his young days.

“He was the leader in every ploy.”

Fearless daredevil

Margaret Meek recalls a story she heard about Bob McBeath: “When asked why he did what he did to win the VC, he said something like only a fool such as himself would have been so reckless.

“We think he was a fearless daredevil, quite the wild child.”

Margaret and Paula have extensively researched McBeath’s background to find that he was born in Fraserburgh to Williamina Shepherd in 1897.

She was separated from her husband, and Robert was sent to live with an unmarried friend and fellow herring girl, Barbara MacKenzie in Kinlochbervie.

Kinlochbervie early 20th century.  Supplied by Willie Morrison

Robert grew up speaking Gaelic, and considered ‘KLB’ his home.

He grew up in Dog Street and later moved to Burnside, attending Badcall Inchard School until he was around 13.

After that it was farm work at Duartbeg Farm, near Scourie, where he made friends with Alexander MacDonald, with whom he joined up in 1914.

After the war, the McBeaths moved to Vancouver, initially to take on a holding in one of the Duke of Sutherland’s lands in Alberta.

They sailed from Liverpool aboard the SS Corinthian on August 8 1919, giving their ages as 21 and 19, Robert stating he had been a farmer in Scotland and intended to do the same in Canada.

On emigrating, Robert McBeath VC joined the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders in Vancouver. Here he is in a guard of honour for the visit of  the Prince of Wales’ trip to the city in September 1919. City of Vancouver archives.

On arrival, he joined the 72nd battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada.

The farming enterprise didn’t work out and, two years later in 1921, Robert joined the Vancouver police department.

Robert McBeath VC in the Vancouver Police in 1921.  Vancouver Police Museum

Gunned down by lowlife

In the cruellest twist of fate, the fearless young soldier who took on a machine gun nest in the trenches and won, was to be gunned down by the city’s lowlife in the street just 14 months later.

Margaret and Paula relate the train of events in their booklet.

“Constable McBeath and Detective Richard Quirk were at the corner of Granville and Davie Streets when they noticed a car being driven erratically.

“Quirk stated at the inquest, held the next day, that ‘it was driven in a very erratic manner, zigzagging from one side of the street to the other and the horn was getting sounded as if someone was leaning over it’.

“Thinking the occupants were drunk, McBeath ordered the driver to stop; instead the car turned around and started to speed away.

“McBeath and Quirk jumped on the running boards and the driver stopped a short distance down the block.”

It turned out the driver was 30-year-old Fred Deal, and his passenger Marjorie Earle, a brothel owner well known to the police.

The booking sheet of Fred Deal, who shot Sutherland police officer Robert McBeath VC in Vancouver in 1922. Supplied by Vancouver Police Museum

They both appeared drunk.

Robert arrested Deal and started walking him to a nearby police box, but a struggle ensured and Deal opened fire, shooting Robert through the heart.

Brothel keeper Marjorie Earle was a notorious underworld figure in Vancouver. Supplied by Vancouver Police Museum

Deal escaped after a short chase by Quirk, who returned to hail a passing taxi driver to take McBeath to hospital, where he died minutes later.

The post-mortem showed that the bullet had passed through his heart, liver and right kidney.  Death was from haemorrhage and shock.

In his short time in Canada, Robert had made a huge impact.

His funeral was one of the biggest ever held in Vancouver at the time, the streets lined with people and a cortege of more than a thousand police, firemen, soldiers, freemasons and members of the public.

Fred Deal was tried in November less than a month after McBeath’s murder.

He claimed that both McBeath and Quirk had beaten him while police witnesses claimed that he had been beaten while in custody.

Deal was sentenced to be hanged but was granted a new trial the following January in light of his claims of brutality and racism.

At the second trial, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment.

He is said to have been a model prisoner and was deported to his native Florida in 1938.

Meanwhile heart-broken and homesick, Barbara returned to Scotland two months later on the SS Metagama.

She remarried in 1924 – to Robert’s old pal Alexander MacDonald from Scourie. They had no children and she died in 1946 aged 47.

Memories of Robert revived

But over the years, the memory of Robert McBeath VC declined in his homeland.

Margaret and Paula relate: “The revival of Robert’s name in his home village of Kinlochbervie came about almost by accident.

“A local resident, on a visit to Canada, happened to read an article about McBeath in a police magazine and brought a copy back.

“Many local people were surprised to discover that a Victoria Cross winner had come from their village.

“Kinlochbervie High School has taken up the challenge to honour Robert McBeath.

“It began in 2006 when the S3 History Class entered Channel 4 Television’s Lost Generation Schools Competition.

“The task was to create a short project about the lost generation who fought in the First World War.

“About 1,000 pupils participated nationwide. The school’s very moving Power Point presentation was the top Scottish entry and in the top 5 in the UK.”

Lasting links forged

This came to the attention of the Vancouver press, and this proved to be the beginning of lasting links between the city and KLB, with Kinlochbervie High pupils visiting Vancouver police department bearing three stones from Robert’s old house to be placed into a cairn they erected in honour of fallen comrades.

The cairn mirrors one built in Robert’s memory by KLB pupils.

In 2009, Vancouver musician, Bruce Coughlan, wrote a song entitled “Robbie McBeath” in which he calls him “the bravest of Sutherland men”.

Now the flags are half-mast in Vancouver City
A sombre procession begins
To honour their Constable Robert McBeath
They’ve gathered in tribute to him
As you walk down the strand at Oldshoremore
As the sun sinks in to the west
Think on the bravest of Sutherland men
And of gallant young Robbie McBeath.

Bruce Coughlan

 

The remains of the house in Kinlochbervie where Robert McBeath VC grew up. Kinlochbervie. Supplied by Margaret Meek