In memory of Victoria Beveridge wife of Lieut Col. Wm McBean V.C., Sutherland Highlanders, born 8th October 1843; died 29th September 1871; and their son, Wm Henry Gordon Victor, born 10th September 1871, died 7th November 1871; Major Gen. Wm McBean V.C., died at Woolwich June 1878 aged [59]. Erected by her sorrowing husband.
William McBean is one of two holders of the Victoria Cross commemorated in the Grange Cemetery and the only one actually buried there.
McBean was not a typical senior army officer of the Victorian period. He was born in Inverness and was baptised there on 18 January 1819, the elder son of John McBean, a shoemaker, and his wife Ann Gordon. He enlisted in the 93rdHighlanders in 1835 aged 16 and served with the regiment in Canada where they were based from 1838 to 1848. The 1841 Worldwide Army Index lists him as a corporal with the regiment then based in Drummondville and Toronto. In the 1851 census he was listed as a sergeant in Edinburgh Castle.
In the 1850s the 93rd saw active service in both the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny which helped McBean rise rapidly up the ranks.
The 93rd embarked for the Crimea in February 1854 and took part in the battles of Alma (September 1854), Balaclava (October 1854) and the siege of Sevastopol. McBean, by then a colour sergeant, was gazetted as an Ensign in August 1854 and a Lieutenant in December 1854. He served as Adjutant from early 1855 until his promotion to Captain in April 1858. He was present at both Alma and the siege of Sevastopol but, having been left in charge of men invalided to Varna, he missed Balaclava where the regiment won the nickname of “The Thin Red Line” when it held fast against a Russian cavalry charge.
The Graphic, 3 August 1878, p. 12
The 93rd embarked for the Crimea in February 1854 and took part in the battles of Alma (September 1854), Balaclava (October 1854) and the siege of Sevastopol. McBean, by then a colour sergeant, was gazetted as an Ensign in August 1854 and a Lieutenant in December 1854. He served as Adjutant from early 1855 until his promotion to Captain in April 1858. He was present at both Alma and the siege of Sevastopol but, having been left in charge of men invalided to Varna, he missed Balaclava where the regiment won the nickname of “The Thin Red Line” when it held fast against a Russian cavalry charge.
The 93rd returned home in June 1856 for a year before embarking for Hong Kong in June 1857 as part of the forces involved in the second Opium War. However the Indian Mutiny meant they were diverted to India, which was where McBean won his Victoria Cross. The regiment arrived in Calcutta in time to take part in the relief of Lucknow in October 1857 and the defeat of rebels based in Cawnpore before returning to re-capture Lucknow in March 1858. It was on 11 March, during fierce hand to hand combat during an assault on a strongly garrisoned fort there, that McBean won the V.C.: “For distinguished personal bravery in killing eleven of the enemy with his own hand in the main breach of the Begum Bagh at Lucknow”.
The regiment remained in India until 1870 undertaking garrison duty and being involved in border fighting in India, including the Umbeyla Campaign on the Afghanistan border in 1863. McBean returned home on leave in 1864 and then in 1869, nine months ahead of the main regiment, due to ill-health.
On 28 July 1870 McBean, by then a 50 year old Major, married Victoria Beveridge, the daughter of Henry Beveridge, Manager of the National Bank in Kirkcaldy. Sadly, she gave birth to a son, William Henry Gordon McBean, on 10 September, but died of Puerperal Peritonitis, at 5 Greenhill Park, on 29 September, shortly before her 28th birthday. She was followed to the grave early in November 1871 by her two month old son.
McBean was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and commanded the regiment from late 1873 until he retired in February 1878 and was promoted to the honorary rank of Major General. Unfortunately a bad fall from a horse led to an operation for gangrene and his relatively early death in hospital at Woolwich on 22 June 1878, aged 59.