Page 39 - Who Was Sapper Brown

Five years later, in 1883, Captain Andrew Scott-Stevenson of the Black Watch, and Commissioner of
Kyrenia for the previous three years, learned that the local farmer who owned the land on which Sergeant

McGaw was buried, had removed the grave marker and was about to plough up the land over the grave.
Captain Scott-Stevenson had the site of the grave traced, and had the remains exhumed and taken to

Kyrenia:

‘The remains were carefully placed in a shell and conveyed to Kyrenia and on the 12th instant Captain
Scott-Stevenson in the full uniform of the Black Watch followed the remains of this gallant soldier to the little

cemetery above Kyrenia and laid them beside those of his comrades who died there. The shell was covered
with the British flag and carried on the shoulders of six Turkish Zaptiehs. After the interment Mrs Scott-

Stevenson decorated the grave with wreaths of passion flower and jasmine.’ 5

Sergeant McGaw’s remains were re-interred in a requisitioned ancient stone sarcophagus, alongside the

graves of three young comrades of The Royal Highlanders, Privates James McDonald, George Marr and
James Barrie, as well as that of Private Stephen Troubridge of the Army Hospital Corps, who had all died

in the military camp at Kyrenia between 8 September and 29 October 1878. Another soldier was buried
there, but his grave is now lost.6

The graves of Privates McDonald, Marr, Barrie and Troubridge. The grave of Sergeant McGaw is visible on the left,

as is the wall plaque in their memory.

5 Cyprus Herald, 17 June 1883, quoted in Wolseley Journal, footnote, p. 10.

6 A letter dated 18 June 1976 in The National Archives (within file CM 4/35) clearly refers to six military graves at Kyrenia,
stating that only five of them were identifiable at that time.

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