John Watson’s Institution Home

Remarkably, the School had its own burial ground, in a patch of land in the adjacent Cauldron Woods. The burial ground is cared for to a high standard and remains as a sad but kindly memorial to those children for whom the School was their final home. The project researchers visited the burial ground (and the tame robin which serves as its daily supervisor) and made a fresh record of the memorials.

The main memorial takes the form of a stone plaque on the wall of the burial ground that carries the names of the children. Each child has their own stone to mark their grave, with their initials carved on top.

Transcription of the main Memorial

Name	Date of Death	Age at Death	Notes
Joanna Lawson	10th September 1828	10 yrs
Ann Black	9th October 1836	7 yrs
Helen Ann Hay	10th April 1838	7 yrs
Maria Smart	29th November 1846	7 yrs
Ellen Christian Henderson	16th June 1850	12 yrs
Margaret Pearson	21st May 1852	11 yrs
George Anderson	29th April 1856	7 yrs
Janet Whitehead	16th June 1865	12 yrs
Joan Elizabeth Oglivie	25th March 1866	10 yrs	The stone may misspell “Ogilvie” here.
Eliza Agnes Ramage	5th January 1869	10 yrs
Elizabeth Helen Paterson	29th December 1880	8 yrs
Sydney Ellis Smith	22nd February 1888	9 yrs	Sydney is remembered on a separate stone on the left side of the memorial.