SCOTT CENTENARY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 91, 18 April 1932, Page 7

SCOTT CENTENARY

BURGH OF SELKIRK

HONOUR FOR SIR J.

ROBERTS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 2nd February.

At a public meeting in Selkirk on 28th January it was decided to hold *he Scott centenary commemoration on the Saturday after the Common Hiding in June. The freedom of the burgh will be conferred on the Duke of Buccleuch, Major Maxwell Scott, of Abbotsford, Mr. John Buchan, M.P., and Sir John Boberts, New Zealand.

This ceremony will take place outside on a platform in the market place close by the statue of Sir Walter Scott, who was a burgess of the royal burgh. Mr. John Buchan will deliver an oration on the great novelist. There will be a procession of the members of the Ancient Incorporations and other public bodies. A luncheon will follow, then a programme in the afternoon, and probably a Scott concert in the evening.

Provoct Ballantyne explained that in view of the state of local industry it was agreed not to go further with the suggestion that bronze figures should be erected round the Scott monument. However, there was an alternative suggestion that a Scott bed might be endowed in Viewfield Nursing Home. The legal profession of the county, at their own expense, proposed to erect a tablet on the front of the Town Hall, wherein Sir Walter presided on the Bench as Sheriff of Se>kirk for a long period.

It was hoped that Sir John Roberts might be able to come from New Zealand to receive the freedom, but if not his son >£ouTd deputise.