John G. Corse Funeral Directors

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John G. Corse Funeral Directors

John G. Corse Funeral Directors is an independent family owned business, providing a professional, caring and understanding service to bereaved families.

Corse Funeral Directors is an independent family owned business, providing a professional, caring and understanding service to bereaved families when it matters most. Having been in the family from 1978, it is currently being run by John Corse, since the death of his father in 1995. In summer 2010 John’s son Calum joined the business full time and has since attained the Certificate in Funeral Prac

tice through studying with the IFD College. In 2016, John’s son Ross also joined the business, taking it into the 3rd generation of the Corse family. In February 2021 Malcolm Scott joined the team, Malcolm is well known through the community in Orkney. We give full advisory on all aspects of burial and cremation. All funeral arrangements vary according to the bereaved family’s wishes; it can be a very stressful and emotional time when you have lost a loved one. At John Corse Funeral Directors, we strive to maintain the high standard of service we provide, so with our caring, understanding and sympathetic attitude we will make this difficult distressing time as stress-free as possible for the bereaved family. We provide a 24-hour on-call service throughout Orkney. John G Corse Funeral Director Ltd is an appointed representative of Golden Charter Limited trading as Golden Charter Funeral Plans which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN:965279).

28/06/2025

It was with huge devastation to the Corse family and the wider community of Orkney when John Corse Senior passed away very suddenly on 28th June 1995 at the age of 63.
John Corse Junior had been helping out part time within the business, juggling his time around his full time job of a carpet fitter, and being there for his young family.
When his father, John Corse Senior passed away, John Corse Junior decided to make the career change to keep the business going.
This marks a major milestone within the business, making it 30 years today since John Corse Junior took over management of the business (being the not so junior John Corse that you know today!)
Please join us in congratulating John on this major milestone in his career.
Further posts will follow on the achievements he has made over the years.

26/06/2025

When John Corse (senior) took the business on, it moved away from Palace Road, as he rented a section of the old BT buildings on Old Scapa Road behind the licensing office shown below.

After around 5 years of being at Old Scapa Road, he then moved to Glaitness Road unfortunately there’s just a present day photo to share, where he stayed until around 1990. Both these premises were just used as coffin storage and a workshop for furnishing coffins.

Back then families had the choice of using the OIC owned Rolls Royce Hearse known as the ‘toon hearse’ or the funeral directors estate cars as a lower cost option. Ours was a black Citroen CX estate. Unfortunately the only photo we have is below of only the front. Ross started his training young as you can see - but he’s got a bigger bucket now!

The early 90s was probably the start of major milestones for the business under John snr, firstly his own premises built in Hatston Industrial Estate. This was a coffin store, workshop and a garage. The garage was required as a hearse was in the pipeline!

The summer of 1992 it arrived. John Jnr and Clive Bews made the trip to Worksop to collect the Daimler DS420 hearse.

Once again, if you have any stories or photos to share with us of the business in this era we would love if you could share this with us.
Further posts will follow of the next stages of the business.

18/06/2025

We are approaching a few big milestones over the next few years as a business, the first coming later this month.
But before we look to the future, let’s have a peedie look back to where the business first started.

A Westray man, David M. Kirkness, moved to Kirkwall to serve his apprenticeship as a joiner. He and his brother, William, went on to set up in business as joiners and undertakers in around 1880.

In 1888 William left and David began to trade as D. M. Kirkness and introduced a sideline which made the name famous - Orkney chairs!

In 1936 David Kirkness passed away, just a few weeks after his retirement, but the business continued by Mr Kirkness’s friend and long service employee, William Price.
In fact it seems that another employee, William Hay, kept the D. M. Kirkness name alive.
According to the Kirkwall Valuation Roll, he rented the workshop on Palace Road from David Kirkness’s son William until 1942 and then bought the premises. He carried on the joinery and undertaking business into the 1950s but the chair making was stopped by World War II.

In 1956 the business was bought by Reynold Eunson, Reynold re-introduce the making of Orkney Chairs to the joinery workshop on Palace Road.
The photos below show the workshop on Palace Road under Reynolds ownership.
Reynold ran the business as a joiners, Funeral Directors and Orkney chair maker until he passed away in 1978.

The Funeral Directors part of the business was bought over by a local serving policeman coming close to retirement by the name of John George Corse (snr).

John G Corse Funeral Directors was established, more updates on that to follow. We’d love to see any photos and hear any stories from the above era of the business.

11/06/2025

John G. Corse M.B.E

After being awarded his M.B.E on the King's Birthday Honours 2024, accompanied by his wife Etta and sister Barbara, John travelled to Windsor Castle on 16th April 2025 to attend his investiture ceremony.

John was presented his M.B.E by The Princess Royal.

John was awarded the M.B.E for his services to the Orkney Community.

26/03/2025

Check out this new addition to out memorial display. A 6” boulder! It’s a heavy bit of stone but it does look smart. Something different from what is in our brochure, these are available in Black, Dark Grey, Vizag blue and Red granite.

17/08/2024

🥁Dools is 50! 🎂🍺

A happy 50th birthday to our talented memorial mason Malcolm Dowell!

15/06/2024

What an honour to receive!

John G. Corse MBE

John has been awarded an MBE for services to the Orkney community. This nomination had a huge list of reasons for receiving the award including his dedication to helping families, building Orkney’s first funeral home and for his extensive charitable efforts over the years.

Congratulations!

20/03/2024

A new memorial added to our display today instead of the traditional black book with bahama blue binder, we have bahama blue book with black binder.

What do you think?

This is one of a few memorials that can be sold from stock, if you’re interested get in touch.

This is an example that everything in our brochure is interchangeable to meet your wishes.

17/03/2024

Amazing work by EJA Valeting & Detailing Orkney - Erlend Aim. Helping us maintain our vehicles to a very high standard.

18/02/2024

Thanks to EJA Valeting & Detailing Orkney - Erlend Aim for helping to keep our fleet looking its best.

07/02/2024

Due to the snow the interment of ashes of the late John (Nonnie) Schollay. Is postponed until Thursday 8th at 10:00am.

20/01/2024

Unfortunately due to high winds forecasted and high chance of ferry cancellations the funeral of the late John W. (Nonnie) Schollay has been postponed. We will put a revised date and time on our funeral announcements page. www.johncorsefunerals.co.uk/funeral-announcements

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Kirkwall

Website

http://www.johncorsefunerals.co.uk/

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