This volume is intended in the first instance as an appreciation of the services rendered by Perthshire men who served in South Africa during the late war, and indirectly, as a tribute to British soldiers and sailors in general. The names (and in most cases the portraits) of the Forfarshire men who took part in the earlier stages of the South African War were recorded in "The Muster-Roll of Angus," published in 1900, and Miss Jane C. C. Macdonald, who had been one of the promoters of the Angus book, undertook, at the suggestion of some friends in Perthshire, to compile a similar record for this county. The work was begun during the course of the war, but in the absence of the many officers and men who were then serving abroad, considerable difficulty was experienced in obtaining the necessary information.
It should be added that space has been found in the Roll for a mention of the men of the Yeomanry and Scottish Horse, who, enlisting for active service towards the end of the South African War, arrived in South Africa to find that peace had been concluded.