Subject(s): John Rattray Sport: Golf Location: Leith Links, Edinburgh Unveiled: 11/9/2019 Sculptor: David Annand Material: Bronze Status: In Situ Inscription(s): Plaque 1: John Rattray Statue. Commissioned by Leith Rules Golf Society. Sculptor: David A. Annand, Kilmany, Fife. Cast by: Powderhall Bronze, Edinburgh. Landscape Architect: WJ Cairns, MCP(MIT) FLI FRSA. Unveiled 2019 the 27th anniversary of the signing of the original Rules. Grateful thanks go to all our donors worldwide. for their generous support including: Leith Rules Golf Society members. The many who help by purchasing John Rattray Bronzes. Leith & Edinburgh locals and friends worldwide. Overseas Members of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Allander Print Ltd, Edinburgh. David Anderson, Golf & Thistle. The John M. Archer Charitable Trust. Clan Rattray & Rattray Family Members Worldwide. John & Margot Dixon. Douglas Foulis. The Charles & Ann Fraser Charitable Trust. Ken Gordon. The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. The Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden. A.B. Mearns Ltd. Michael O’Bryan, St. Andrews & Florida. The R&A. The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. The Royal Yacht Britannia. Mike Rutherford. Teague Homes (UK) Limited. Friends of Dr. Lewis Blakey. Peter & Margaret Wood, Edinburgh. Full donors list of Leith Rules Golf Society website. Plaque 2: JOHN RATTRAY. SURGEON, SPORTSMAN & JACOBITE. John Rattray (1707-1771) signed the original 13 Rules of Golf drawn up in March 1744. Eleven golfers competed in this first “Open” golf tournament played over Leith Links on 2nd April that year. Edinburgh Town Council enacted 11 tournament regulations dated 7th March, demanded written rules and commissioned a silver club as the prize. Rattray won and the Gentlemen Golfers’ 13 Rules “Articles & Laws in Playing at Golf” still form the basis of today’s global game. As winner, Rattray became “Captain of the Golf” for the year and affixed a silver ball with his initials to the Silver Club. He won again in 1745. That year, however, Rattray’s life took a dramatic turn. As a surgeon and Jacobite he became surgeon general to Bonnie Prince Charlie, was captured at Culloden and set to hang. Rescue came when his golfing companion, Lord Duncan Forbes of Culloden, gained his release. Rattray played and won again in 1751. Leith is the birthplace of competitive golf, first home of the Gentlemen Golfers who wrote the original Rules and witness to John Rattray’s inaugural Silver Club victory. The Silver Club remains the oldest golf trophy in the world still played for today. The Gentlemen Golfers are now known as The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. The competition was contested over Leith Links every year until 1828 when play moved to Musselburgh and, in 1892, to Muirfield. Plaque 3: THE ORIGINAL RULES OF GOLF. Articles & Laws in Playing at Golf. 1. You must Tee your Ball, within a Club’s length of the Hole. 2. Your Tee must be upon the Ground. 3. You are not to change the Ball which you Strike off the Tee. 4. You are not to remove, Stones, Bones or any Break Club, for the sake of playing your Ball, Except upon the fair Green & that only within a Club’s length of your Ball. 5. If your Ball come among Watter or any wattery filth, you are at liberty to take out your Ball & bringing it behind the hazard and Teeing it, you may play it with any Club and allow your Adversary a Stroke for so getting out your Ball. 6. If your Balls be found any where touching one another, You are to lift the first Ball, till you play the last. 7. At Holling, you are to play your Ball honestly for the Hole, and, not to play upon your Adversary’s Ball, not lying in your way to the Hole. 8. If you should lose your Ball, by its being taken up, or any other way, you are to go back to the Spot, where you struck last, & drop another Ball, And allow your adversary a Stroke for the misfortune. 9. No man at Holling his Ball, is to be allowed, to mark his way to the Hole with his Club, or any thing else. 10. If a Ball be stopp’d by any person, Horse, Dog, or any thing else, The Ball so stop’d must be play’d, where it lyes. 11. If you draw your Club in order to Strike & proceed so far in the Stroke, as to be bringing down your Club; If then, your Club shall break, in any way, it is to be Accounted A Stroke. 12. He whose Ball lyes farthest from the Hole is obliged to play first. 13. Neither Trench, Ditch or Dyke, made for the preservation of the Links, nor the Scholar’s Holes or the Soldier’s Lines, Shall be Accounted a Hazard; But the Ball is to be taken out Teed and play’d with any Iron Club. John Rattray, Cptn. Links: Sculptor