Inverness Church Remembers Teenage Waterloo Hero

Monday June 22

^{Members of the Royal Scots Association’s Highland branch pictured at the Kennedy Memorial in the Old High Church on Sunday, with wives and church officials. They are, from left: Church elder Gordon Harvey, Derrick Cameron, Lizzie Cameron, James Hogg, Ann Cornwall, Pipe-Major Thomas Cornwall, Jacqueline McCairn, Pat McCairn, Rev Peter Nimmo.}

Members of the Royal Scots Association’s Highland branch joined the Old High Church congregation at the Midsummer’s Day service to remember a local teenage hero who died two centuries ago saving his regiment’s colours, in one of the last battles against Napoleon Bonaparte.

Ensign James Grant Kennedy, a newly commissioned officer in the Royal Scots, had celebrated his 15th birthday on June 13 1815.

He was killed only three days later, serving with the regiment’s 3rd Battalion, in the bloody encounter which took place two days before the Battle of Waterloo, between the French and a combined British and Continental force, at the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras.

Ensign Kennedy, whose name appears on his family memorial in the west stairwell of the Old High Church, was the third son of Inverness physician Dr William Kennedy, first president of the Medical Society of the North, and one of the founders of the Royal Northern Infirmary.

During the service, branch chairman Pipe-Major Thomas Cornwall laid a wreath in the memorial area of the church in memory of the boy officer. It will be placed on the stairwell memorial after ongoing repairs to the church roof and ceiling have been completed.

“I thought it was a good service and it was very kind of the church to allow us to do this,” he said afterwards.

The 3rd Battalion of The Royal Scots fought with distinction against Napoleon Bonaparte’s army in the last days of the latter’s doomed campaign to regain his empire. Ensign Kennedy was carrying the King’s Colours in advance of the battalion at Quatre Bras. He was shot in the arm, but bravely carried on until shot again and fatally wounded.

A sergeant went forward to retrieve the Colours, but the boy ensign was holding them so tightly that he could not break the lad’s grip. The sergeant then picked up young Kennedy, carrying him over his shoulder with the Colours still in the dead youth’s fist. The French commander, on seeing this display of bravery, is said to have ordered his men to withhold their fire until the sergeant regained his own lines with his burden.

The Colours saved by Kennedy and the sergeant are currently on display at the Royal Scots Museum at Edinburgh Castle until August.

Two of James’s brothers, both serving with the Indian Army, also later  perished on military service. Lieutenant William Scott Kennedy, born in 1794, adjutant of the 6th Bengal Cavalry, died at the remote Indian outpost of Mhow in 1821, while Lieutenant Hugh Scott Kennedy, of the 19th Madras Infantry, born in 1806, died at sea in 1832. Their father died in 1823 and their mother Mary in 1840.

Comments

Jane Herasimenko - Saturday, July 1st, 2017

“What a fantastic article! I have been researching our Kennedy lineage and getting very frustrated! Surrounded by old illegible family trees that are not proven, cryptic notes and even Burke's Peerage that tells me the line is correct but does not provide the succession!!......sadly because the line that leads to Dr. William Kennedy is interrupted on several occasions and there are wonderful and hardy Scots women who kept it all going, as is often the case, with little recognition! I have the LDS record for the marriage of Dr. William Kennedy 1760-1823 to Mary Randall Scott which took place at Inverness 8 July 1789 but there are no parents listed and no original image. I have a tree that tells me that Mary's father was William Scott of Seabrook 1700-1823 or33, whose mother was Marion nee Mackenzie who married Hector Scott. I have another LDS record for this marriage 1731 Inverness as well.......and Marion's parents are Katherine Shaw who married Kenneth Mackenzie 2nd Lord of Suddie. Katherine's parents were Marion Kennedy and John Shaw of Sornberg........Marion was the daughter of Alexander Kennedy of Kilhenzie who died in 1697. There is another line through Dr. William Kennedy, of which I only know the male names and both lines lead to the Earls of Cassillis and further back in time. Thank you so much for posting this wonderful story, some of which I had been told, with very few facts! I would love to speak to anyone who is responsible for the research of this family history as I am very interested in any other details of William's or Mary's family. I am a Kennedy cousin and any help would be most appreciated.
Best regards
Jane
Ottawa ON Canada”

miranda macdonald - Thursday, December 27th, 2018

“Contact me as I am doing Mackenzie Kennedy family tree & direct descendant of William Kennedy living in Scotland ”

casey - Sunday, November 19th, 2023

“Very lovely. Sir Donald Mackenzie Kennedy is my mother’s grandfather. Deborah Anne Mackenzie Kennedy. I have the family tree. ”

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