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William Keith Tait

Once again the post of Rector of Miller Institution was much sought after with thirty-one applicants.  On this occasion the Board decided on a list of three to interview and appointed William Keith Tait unanimously to the post.  He was called in immediately after the interview to meet the board and discuss any special plans he might have for the school.  Since he was already employed there as a teacher he had good knowledge of the present and future requirements.

At the time of his appointment, William Keith Tait, was both the first former pupil to hold the post and the youngest so far appointed to the position of Rector of Miller Institution.  He was first appointed to the Miller Institution in October 1901 having graduated from Edinburgh University with the degree of M.A. in 1899.  

He was also a former pupil of the Royal High School in Edinburgh and went from there to Edinburgh University where he graduated M.A. in 1899.  His many achievements in Edinburgh and his early teaching career are well documented in the first Miller Institution Club magazine, the applicable section which is reproduced elsewhere in this book.

This photograph is reproduced from the Miller Institution Club Magazine and was taken about 1912.

Rector William Keith Tait residing in Sinclair Street, Thurso died in office in November 1919 at the young age of 42 years. He was unmarried and the son of John Tait, a Coachman, and Annie Keith.  Mr Tait was laid to rest in Thurso cemetery.  The first reference to illness is made by Mr Tait, himself, on April 11^th of that year in the logbook.  He writes, ‘Having contracted facial paralysis I have been unable to be in school this week.’  This entry was for the week before the Easter holidays but his health seems little better after the holidays as in mid-May he was still reporting that he was unfit for regular duty.  Whether or not Mr Tait’s final illness was  the same as he suffered at this time is not clear but by October he was granted three month’s sick leave and his duties were undertaken temporarily by David Sutherland, Headmaster of West Banks School, Wick.  Mr Sutherland undertook the duties of Head of the school until the appointment, in February 1920, of Alfred Ross Murison, a graduate of Aberdeen University.

Mr David Sutherland before his interim duty had taken a similar post at Keiss School but under rather different circumstances.  The Keiss Head Teacher, Robert McClements, was a conscientious objector who had tried to take up his post after the war but had been forced to resign in the face of stern opposition from parents and his assistant teacher at the school.  Mr Sutherland was better known as Captain Sutherland who had won the Military Cross for distinguished war service.  He was the writer of ‘The Northern Eye Witness’ column in the John O’ Groat Journal vividly conveying to Caithness people the horrors of life on the Western Front.