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Burnett, Charles Eulogy
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EULOGY FOR CHARLES BURNETT
Given by Gordon Casely Esq, St Vincent’s Church, EDINBURGH, on Saturday 26 October 2024
IN MEMORIUM
Charles Burnett KStJ DA AMA MLitt FHSS FSAScot
Society Founder and President Emeritus
Charles Burnett was the original square peg in a square hole he carefully fashioned for himself. Not for him an orthodox 9-to-5 life, but one devoted to originality, creativity, scholarship. and the rightful place of it all in today’s world.
Charles was quite one of the leading heraldists of his generation, both in the practice of the gentle science and in promulgating the message that heraldry is for all. Blessed with creative skills, he engineered exhibitions, established conferences, and most of all, founded the Heraldry Society of Scotland. In doing so, he crafted a platform that has proved an entrée to heraldry for people across an enormous social spectrum. Nor were his efforts confined to Scotland, for he personally spread the word in four continents.
So it’s so difficult to pigeon-hole Charles in any single way.
Yes, he was always interested in history.
Yes, his specialist areas were graphics and visual communication.
Yes, he was a doughty campaigner for the built heritage.
Yes, he was a stalwart in the Order of St John.
So yes, perhaps in all these, the common bond proved heraldry.
Years before Charles became an officer of arms at the Court of the Lord Lyon, he had in mind the creation of some kind of heraldic society. In 1976, at his own expense, he mailshotted those whom he thought might be interested in forming such an association.
Thus on a rainy Saturday in February 1977, three dozen met up in Edinburgh. Charles welcomed everyone by explaining what heraldry is, gave a short illustrated presentation, then put the question – should a heraldry society be formed?
Then…a revelation: what Charles had in mind was of a very different hue to that of us, his audience. Delighted with our enthusiasm, he famously replied: “I’ll now write to The Heraldry Society in London, and let them know that they’ll have a branch in Scotland”.
The negative roar rocked Charles, and he looked baffled. Then came: “I see – so you want a separate Scottish society?”. “YES!” we thundered.
That was then and this is now, and that infant society of his now has a membership approaching 400 across every continent in the world except Antarctica (though we’re working on that too). Since then, how many times have we heard those now in possession of a coat of arms say: “Heraldry changed my life”? So both by his example and through the members of the society he enlisted, Charles unconsciously tempered minor societal change across our land.
In just over two years, the Heraldry Society of Scotland marks 50 years not out. The sadness is that Charles won’t be here with us then, though his spirit will surely be well in evidence.
Charles John Burnett was born in Aberdeenshire – what he termed “God’s own country” - in the fishing village of Sandhaven, four miles west of Fraserburgh. He once told me that his earliest memory involved insignia……... spotting a swastika on a wounded German bomber during an enemy raid on the Spitfire engine factory in Fraserburgh.
His creative talents showed early. He organised a Coronation display for his primary class, and while still at school, designed and built the display cabinet for an exhibition commemorating a distinguished 19th century cleric in the town.
In 1964 in Aberdeen, he conceived the costumes, setting, and programme for the production of Sir David Lyndsay’s meisterwerk The Thrie Estatis – and it was on the set of this play that he met the wardrobe mistress - his future wife Aileen McIntyre. They fell in love from the start, and he knew no other.
From Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, Charles graduated with distinction in fine art, along with a penchant for smoking absolutely foul Gauloises. Goodness, they were awful.
His target of a career in design began through marketing with House of Fraser, then moving to being one of the team designing and managing the British Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal. His abilities there came to the notice of the international diplomat Paul Henderson Scott, who in his autobiography A 20th Century Life, describes Charles as “….a talented designer, an enthusiast for heraldry, of infinite patience, good nature and robust common sense”.
Montreal proved the emergence of Burnett the record-keeper, for Charles in his distinctive script handwrote page after page of the British Pavilion book confirming VIP visits. Lyon Office today houses several volumes of Charles’s similar work, much of it handwritten. Indeed, lists of Charles’s books, publications, events, creative ideas, conferences, exhibitions, lectures, articles and duties run to some two dozen pages of A4.
Career posts and appointments in museums and galleries form another list - Letchworth, Hertfordshire; the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (where one of his assistants was a young Muriel Gray); Scottish United Services Museum, Edinburgh Castle; and finally Chamberlain of Duff House, Banff.
The Court of the Lord Lyon was not slow in scooping up his talents, and Charles became an officer of arms, appointed Dingwall Pursuivant. When promotion to Ross Herald followed, he held this latter post for 22 years, almost a record in length of time served. He was a proud Knight of the Order of St John, and with fellow knight Henry Tilling, produced a history of the Order in Scotland.
Ever the individual, Charles displayed great singularity of taste. He ploughed his own furrow…..never failing to dress otherwise than immaculately; loathing sport; being passionately apathetic about Gaelic; and using as his personal typeface Book Antiqua in blue rather than the near universal black Times New Roman.
Oh, and refusing to learn to drive….remarking to me once: “It’s something only the servants did”.
Only Charles could get away with a statement like that.
Becoming one of Lyon’s heralds brought Charles’s innate sense of style to the fore. He imparted such a sense of occasion on ceremonial duty….a display quite unmatched. He and I worked together in the presentation of Letters Patent to a dozen corporate bodies and community councils, and a highlight for me at every event was always the manner in which he would proclaim the Letters Patent.
At Aberchirder, Braemar, Ellon, Fordyce, Keith, Peterhead, Strathdon and other places, he’d stand there, in full tabard and in commanding form, reading the formal document granting arms, declaring in ringing tones: “To all and sundry, whom these presents do or may concern, we, the Lord Lyon King of Arms, send greeting…..” and so on, and so on. After which, the company would retire for tea and cake, or in Charles’s case, perhaps a glass of something a little stronger.
And on this note, let me say that the Charles I knew marked every lunchtime of his career by supping a robust glass of red wine. So you can take it from me that at the reception at the Royal Scots Club which follows this service, red wine certainly features.
Hugely proud of his Burnett heritage, Charles helped originate a Burnett Family Room within Crathes Castle on Deeside, and painted two dozen shields of various holders of Burnett arms to adorn it. He then went on to script and star in a film introducing heraldry, shot at Crathes.
Charles came with big ideas for the nascent Heraldry Society of Scotland. He opened with a programme teaching simple heraldry cheerfully illustrated, offset by what has become the justly famous St Andrew Dinner, held from the outset on formal lines while encouraging people from all walks of life to attend.
On that first evening in 1977 in the Carlton Highland Hotel here in Edinburgh, my dining companions included Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk across from me, the German vice-consul Hilman von Halem on my left, and a bus driver on my right.
And in originating the annual St Andrew Lecture, Charles invited speakers from nothing less than the top. In a fashion so typical of him, he created a historic link when in 1986, John Brooke-Little, delighting in the title of Norroy and Ulster King of Arms at the College of Arms in London, addressed us. Now, it’s one of the curios of the 1707 Treaty of Union between Scotland and England that heraldically, Scotland and England remain foreign nations. Thus it was that when John Brooke-Little crossed the Border, he was paying the first formal visit by an English herald to Scotland since his predecessor Edmund Norgate in 1639.
For all Charles’s many ideas on contemporary heraldry, the period he loved best was the Scottish Renaissance during the reign of James V, to the extent that he organised a conference on it. He extended this period through his master’s thesis at Edinburgh University in 1992 with a study which included heraldic art in the reign of James V’s grandson. James VI.
There was more to Charles of course than simply the Heraldry Society of Scotland…..though it’s fair to say that for his lifetime commitment to the society he founded, he was latterly honoured with the title of President Emeritus, the first and probably only holder of this honorific.
Within the Order of St John, he proved a more than capable director of ceremonies as well as serving for 11 years as Priory Librarian. In this latter role, he reorganised the eclectic and in many cases valuable Order collection along thoroughly modern lines.
During his tenure at Duff House in Banff, he brought contemporary meaning to what had been a Georgian palace. And he left an indelible mark on his corner of the Moray Coast through gaining arms for such disparate bodies as Banff Heritage Society, the Northern Club, two more community councils, and Peterhead Bay Authority.
And with his sculptor brother Gordon, he was to the forefront of celebrations in 2011 marking the 600th anniversaryof the Battle of Harlaw, raising funds to complete the unfinished century-old battle monument near Inverurie by adding six metal shields in full colour commemorating the principal combatants.
Some years ago, with his eye on the inevitable, Charles asked that I write his obituary…. but furnished me with a mere CV. I countered this, pointing out that obituaries flourish not on lists of jobs and dates, but on anecdotes, stories, incidents, narratives and tales about people – whereupon he reeled off a litany of names from Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Shah of Persia to Hollywood actor Kirk Douglas. The bad news is that he never got round to clothing any of them in the colourful detail we’d all love to hear.
The good news is that he never lost his touch in marketing exhibitions under catchy designations. Just one example: in a throwback to his early years in advertising, he memorably drew record crowds to an event at the National Museum of Antiquities highlighting Scotland’s ancient currency, thanks to his titling of it as “Angels, Nobles and Unicorns” – all of which are names of old Scots coins.
Charles adored family life. He was predeceased by his beloved Aileen, and is survived by his children Sara, Sandy and Johnny, and his grandchildren.
Down all the many years I knew him, Charles could be difficult, awkward, annoying, cantankerous, and sometimes downright crabbit. But as my friend of 58 years, I also remember him as innovative, creative, attentive, informative, funny and endlessly helpful. He was such a fount of knowledge on so many fronts, and we all mourn him.
He died full of years, a great man, and a great friend.
His legacy to his family is as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, uncle, brother and cousin.
His legacy to many is the thriving Heraldry Society of Scotland.
His legacy to us all the learning and laughter and happiness he has strewn in his wake.
The artwork is an intrepretation of Charles Burnett himself.
2024 1030
dqw266@gmail.com
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