Celebrating 140 years serving Highland Families (1884 – 2024)
140 years ago, the world was a very different place.
In 1884, Queen Victoria was on the throne, and William Gladstone was Prime Minister. Education had only recently become compulsory for children under the age of ten, and Mr Marks and Mr Spencer were yet to meet and start trading.
In Inverness, the riverside as we know it today was beginning to take shape, with St Andrew’s Cathedral having opened its doors in 1869, and the Town House following in 1882. The arrival of the railways in the 1850s had swelled the town’s population to around 17,000.
John Fraser – 1866 - 1943
Against this backdrop in 1884, a newly qualified carpenter took on the lease of premises in Academy Street. That carpenter was 18-year-old John Fraser. In the 1800s, carpenters regularly assumed the role of funeral directors, and so our family business began. John Fraser was the great grandfather of our current proprietor Vicki Fraser.
John Gordon Fraser – 1904 - 1953
John’s son John Gordon, born when his father was 38, joined his father in the business straight from school. Hence our name, John Fraser & Son.
In time, the carpentry side of the business wound down, allowing father and son to focus solely on funeral services. They developed two strands to the business during the first half of the 20th century. As funeral directors they were conducting funerals – the 1933 funeral of Lord Lovat at Eskadale Church is a rare, filmed example of father and son at work – and they were also providing wholesale services to other funeral directors across the Highlands.
This expansion of the business meant that administrative support was required, and that role was fulfilled by John Gordon’s wife Margaret. Unusually for those times, Margaret continued to work even after the couple’s son Ian was born in 1930, when John Gordon was 26.
Ian Crawford Fraser – 1930 - 2014
John senior lived until his grandson Ian was 13. Following in his father’s footsteps, Ian joined the family business straight from school, although father and son didn’t work together for very long – John Gordon died at the age of 51 when Ian was just 23. A photograph of John Gordon’s funeral cortege making its way to Tomnahurich Cemetery from the family home shows all the curtains closed; this was a common practice in the 1950s.
Ian, Vicki’s Dad, and the third generation of Frasers to run the firm, set about expanding the firm yet again. By this time it truly was a family firm, with his mother and father still working, and his sister Edith joining the firm too.
Under Ian’s stewardship, the firm bought a house at Chapel Street, Inverness, which they converted to make it more suitable for the needs of the business.
In time, the house was demolished and today’s funeral home, complete with office space, generously sized service room, family rooms, rest rooms and mortuary was built. Helpfully, the footprint of the plot allowed for a large car park, and a memorial garden to be built too.
Ian expanded into offering memorials, with large workshop and garage facilities across the road. The business, as we know it today, was beginning to take shape. In addition to the expansion of his own business, Ian became involved in public life. Edith’s continued support in the business allowed him to serve as a local councillor in the 1970s. He went on to become Provost of Inverness between 1975 and 1980, while still retaining an active role in the business.
Ian was 51 when his daughter Vicki was born. At that time, funeral directing was still very much a male-dominated profession.
Victoria (Vicki) Elizabeth Fraser
As a young girl Vicki had been keen to join the family business; she witnessed first-hand the impact that a well-conducted funeral could have on those left behind, and she made her intentions clear to her father. But Ian wasn’t having any of it; he was keen for his daughter to experience life away from Inverness, and away from funeral directing, in order to allow her to make an informed choice about her future career.
Vicki therefore left school and went to Napier University, Edinburgh to study Business, but her heart was still with the family business. While studying for business exams, she also started studying to become a funeral director. Fully committed to her choice, she persuaded her father to allow her to join the business after graduation.
Vicki worked and studied hard, passing exams in funeral directing and embalming, and worked alongside her father for a decade before his death in 2014. One of the last major projects the pair worked on together was to establish and open their second premises at Lovat House in Dingwall, to serve the Ross-shire and wider Highland community.
The business today
When Vicki took over as sole proprietor in 2014, her aim was to modernise the business while maintaining true to the values and principals of the three generations of Frasers who went before her.
As the first female funeral director in the Highlands, Vicki has renovated and expanded the Chapel Street, Inverness funeral home, and modernised the firm’s vehicles by introducing the Highlands first ever fleet of silver hearses and limousines. She introduced a touch of Fraser tartan into staff uniforms and brought the business up to date with an online and social media presence.
As part of her renovations, Vicki installed the Highlands’ first multi-media system into the Inverness Service Room, allowing families and friends from afar to attend and participate in online funeral services, long before the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic made that commonplace.
From a one-man business in 1884, John Fraser & Son have expanded their firm to now comprise four fully qualified funeral directors, all of whom – unusually - are trained embalmers. There is also a trainee who is flying through his exams, soon to become fully qualified.
The next 140 years of John Fraser & Son
Where might the next 140 years take the business?
The world of funerals is relaxing and changing to reflect modern times, and almost anything goes now, from glitter coffins and pop music to motorcycle hearses and ashes being incorporated into fireworks. But one thing will never change: that’s John Fraser & Son’s commitment to treating families and their loved ones with the utmost respect, dignity and care, and to getting every funeral right for every family, every time.
