Charles Shirra Dougall

Dollar Magazine obituary


Obituaries Index


THE LATE MR C S DOUGALL, M.A.


It was with profound regret that his numerous friends, and particularly his former colleagues, heard of the death of Mr Charles S Dougall, M.A., lately Headmaster of Dollar Academy. The sad event occurred on the 2nd January last, at the residence of his sister, Mrs T B Ferguson, Stirling.

We know that Mr Dougall had a brilliant University career at Glasgow, crowned with numerous distinctions, including the Cunninghame Gold Medal and the Eglinton Scholarship, which he held for three years. We know also that his work as a teacher before he came to Dollar Academy as Headmaster, had already placed him in the front rank of his profession. What we are, however, concerned with here, is what he did, not only for Dollar Academy but for Dollar. Mr Dougall came to Dollar in September 1902, just a year after the writer of these lines. His influence was immediately felt. A new spirit seemed to be infused into the School, and a remarkable change came over the relations between the School and the burgh of Dollar. The standard of scholarship gradually rose, and at the end of his first ten years in Dollar, years of hard and ungrudging work, Mr Dougall could point with pardonable pride to the many honours gained by a long line of distinguished former pupils. But his activities were not limited to the inside of the School. Who of us that remember the state of the School grounds before Mr Dougall's time, do not look with gratitude on the work he did? To Mr Dougall's energy and enthusiasm are due the Athletic Club Pavilion, the institution of the O.T.C., the Girls' Hockey Club, the Ash Tennis Courts, the Science Block, the open Shooting Range, the beautiful War Memorial, and the purchase of the Athletic Field. But Mr Dougall was a citizen of Dollar. He took a leading part in every department of the social and public life of the community as an enthusiastic curler, a keen Freemason, a more than average golfer, a bowler, a persuasive public speaker, and the life and soul of any entertainment which had the privilege of his presence. His fame as an authority on Burns was not merely local. His work on "The Burns Country" takes a high place in Burns literature, and is not likely to be superseded as the best authority on the subject.

Mr Dougall, take him all in all, will go down in the history of the School as one of its foremost headmasters.

This obituary of Charles Shirra Dougall is taken from Tbe Dollar magazine (1930)