The British Army had a wide variety of denominations in its ranks during the twentieth century and whilst, like the UK, the majority of them would consider themselves to be members of the Church of England, other denominations included Baptists, Methodists and north of the border, the Church of Scotland. The Church of Scotland was perhaps the second largest Christian denomination in the British Army at the time, so it is unsurprising that special service books for those who were members of this church were produced for Scottish soldiers and today we are looking at one of these from the 1930s:

The title page shows this was printed in 1935 and was specifically for use by members of His Majesty’s Forces:

The book is only thin, to allow it to be easily slipped into a pocket or haversack, and has a selection of religious tracts, rather than a full text, including a selection of Psalms:

Some of these are in Gaelic rather than English:

The Church of England dominated the Royal Army Chaplaincy at this period and it would not be until the end of the Twentieth Century before the first non CofE Chaplain General would be appointed. Having said that, the Church of Scotland did have a Chaplains’ Committee looking after the interests of Presbyterian chaplains and Scottish soldiers at home and overseas and they would do valuable work, especially with PoWs in World War II.