When local teacher John Whitecross died in Clackmannan in 1855 he was respectfully laid to rest in the Kirk Graveyard in Clackmannan. Only three years later he was joined in his plot by his son.
Sometime prior to 1897 a new cemetery was opened to the north of the Black Devon river. The cemetery and its newer extension are now beside an area of extensive housing called Devonway. The Whitecross family decided they wanted to move their male family members to the new cemetery where they could have a memorial stone erected for them and so they applied for permission to do so.
They lodged and application to move the bodies from the Kirk Graveyard to the new Clackmannan Cemetery with the local Parachial board as well as the heads of families which had inherited the lands of Clackmannan. Eventually they were given permission for the relocation, however the bodies had to be moved in the darkness of the night.
The family started to arrange for the transfer of the bodies. However they immediately hit a major problem. The local gravedigger refused to dig up the coffins overnight. This resulted in the family having to arrange for gravediggers to come from Alloa to carry out the exhumation.
On the 30th of March 1855 the gravediggers arrived with a cart and horse as well as their tools to start the work of removing the men from the Kirk graveyard. They were immediately turned away as they had arrived during daylight hours. A collection of local residents had gathered and told the Alloa men that should they return, they may be attacked. Death threats were also issued.
The Alloa men arrived back the kirk graveyard at 10pm that night and started to dig the plot. They had brought with them two new coffins for the contents and remains of the existing coffins to be put into. As word spread around the village that the men were back, local residents started gathering at the graveyard.
The local residents started shouting at the grave diggers yelling “Let the dead rest”. When their shouts were ignored some of the villagers started climbing the walls and continued shouting, however again they were just ignored. Becoming more and more enraged with every shovel full of soil that was removed from the plot, a single villager throw a stone at the grave diggers this was the start of a barge of stones being thrown at the men by the villagers. The men however continued digging until a gunshot rang out. The men stopped digging and put their tools down and left the Kirk graveyard and Clackmannan.
On the departure of the Alloa men the villagers of Clackmannan set to work smashing the new coffins that had been left in the kirkyard then to ensure they could not be repaired and used the villagers set fire to them both. Over the sound of the angry crowd the village bell could be heard ringing. The police and senior members of the community finally got the villagers to go back to their homes, unknown to the villagers they had been labeled “rioters”.
The following day the Alloa gravediggers returned. This time the police were there to protect them and eventually the Whitecross men were moved to their new burial plot in Clackmannan’s new cemetery.