Obituary: Reverend David Whiteford CBE, 91

THE Reverend David Whiteford CBE, who served as a forces chaplain and later became parish minister at Gullane, has died, aged 91.

David Hutchison Whiteford was a son of the manse. He was born on 16 December, 1918, in Lockerbie, where his father, who live to the age of 90, was the United Free Church minister.

He spent most of his ministry in the army chaplaincy, a role which took him to Europe during the Second World War, Malaysia, America and Germany. But when he was not serving abroad, his life was very much based in and around Edinburgh.

When Rev Whiteford was 13, his family moved to Leith and he was sent to George Watson's College, where he played rugby as a forward for the First XV. He went on to take an arts degree at the University of Edinburgh before studying divinity at New College.

His studies were interrupted when he undertook two years' voluntary service with the RAF. But he returned to North Leith for his assistantship to the eminent Hugh Douglas.

Rev Whiteford was ordained as a chaplain to the forces in 1943 and completed his Bachelor of Divinity in 1946.

He married Mary Simpson in 1944, shortly before the D-Day landings and it marked the beginning of a series of lucky escapes.

Not long after they were married, the couple were on their way to Sunday service at the Guards Chapel in St. James's, but their train was delayed. The newly-weds were fortunate, for that Sunday, 18 June, a V1 bomb hit the chapel, killing 121 people and injuring another 141. Rev Whiteford was posted to the 5th Black Watch at Caen, and again missed being hit by an enemy shell that destroyed the battalion HQ.

On being transferred to the 2nd Scots Guards as they were about to cross the Rhine, he came under such heavy fire that funerals had to be conducted at night. Occasionally, he even had to jump into the grave to take cover while conducting a service.

Rev Whiteford remained with the Scots Guards after the war, serving in the Malayan Emergency, before the Foreign Office posted him to the United States on a speaking tour.

From 1966 – when he completed his PhD on the reactions to Jacobitism in 18th century ecclesiastical life – until 1971 he was Deputy Chaplain General and an honorary chaplain to the Queen.

Rev Whiteford left the army with a CBE in 1972 and became the parish minister at Gullane, East Lothian.

Naturally commanding and capable, he retired in 1985.

He spent the last years caring for his wife, who died in 2008, and is survived by a son, two daughters and their families.