Daniel Walker
After Bearsden's first casualty in September 1914, it was eight months until the second.
Daniel Nisbet Walker was born on 30th August 1893 at a location described on his birth record as "New Town, Milngavie" - I cannot find a record of "New Town" but assume it must have been a proper address to be recorded on an official document rather than a nickname for a part of the town. In the 1891 Census (two years before Daniel was born) the Walker family lived at 129 Main Street, Milngavie, which no longer exists. In the Census record the previous property is 131 Main Street and underneath the person completing the Census has written "Allander Terrace":
I am still not clear where Allander Terrace was - one newspaper report seems to place it by Lennox Park, so possibly at the location of the Scout Hall by the traffic lights on Milngavie Road and Park Road.
His father was Robert Denholm Walker, a carter who had been born in Strathblane, and his mother was Isabella Nisbet. He had five older siblings, Peter, Samuel, Maggie, James and Robert, and one younger sister, Jeannie.
By 1901, the Census showed the family was living at Eaton Place in Bearsden. Eaton Place incorporated Melville Place and the Post Office, which is the row of shops on Drymen Road opposite the junction with Station Road:
The eldest son, Peter, was a carter, like his dad and the eldest sister, Maggie was a dye-worker even though only 14. This would probably have been at the dyeworks at Burnbrae, located where McDonald's now stands:
Maggie died aged 19 of cardiac failure, a possible side-effect of arsenic poisoning. I have not been able to check if arsenic was used at Burnbrae but it was a part of one process for making green dye. (With thanks to Angus McCuish and Ken Paterson for their help.)
Probably aged 14 (1907) Daniel would have left school and we know he worked for Colonel Denny in Dumbarton as a gardener. This would be John McAusland Denny, son the chairman of Denny's shipbuilders of Dumbarton, who worked for the company securing foreign orders. He had been a Conservative MP but lest we judge him too harshly for that, he was also a leading figure in setting up a regional association for women's suffrage. He lived at Helenslee:
Clearly the gardens were quite extensive so Daniel was probably not the only gardener employed.
When war broke out, Daniel seems to have volunteered quickly; while I have no reference to support this I suspect he may have been a volunteer in the 'territorial army' unit of the 9th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (A&SH) which was commanded by the same Colonel Denny who was his peacetime employer.
The battalion moved to Bedford in England in August 1914 for training as part of The Highland Division and went to France in February 1915. Photos of the Division's time in Bedford can be found here. As an example, this photo shows unnamed A&SH soldiers outside their billet:
Could Daniel be one of these men?
Transferred to the 27th Division (81 Brigade), the battalion was soon in the trenches around Ypres, just over the border into Belgium, in time for the German attack on 22nd April 1915.
The solid black line to the right of "Ypern" shows the front at the start of the battle and the dashed line shows the front in May. By the end of the month, 116 men of Daniel's battalion (of about 800 initially) had been killed and the numbers of fit soldiers was so reduced that they had to be combined with the 7th Battalion of A&SH to form a composite unit.
Daniel survived much of this. He was spared the initial German attack which used poison gas for the first time - this produced a splitting headache, unbearable thirst and death as the lungs filled with liquid. Within a few months the British and French were using their own version.
But in the third stage of the battle, referred to as the Battle of Frezenberg, the fury of the German attack descended on 81st Brigade on 8th May 1915 and the battalions in the front line began to buckle.
This map is from the war diary of the brigade Daniel's battalion was in - while a little difficult to read you can see Ypres on the left and Zouave Wood on the right, just below the centre. This was where the 9th A&SH were moved into the front line, including a counter-attack:
46 men of the battalion died on the 10th May, including their colonel, James Clark; in total 66 were killed in five days. The survivors were given a few days out of the line but the German attacks continued and on 24 May 1915 the final stage, the battle of Bellewaarde began (see the map above, just north of Zouave Wood on the right hand side).
The 9th A&SH, severely reduced in number, were now attached to 10th Brigade (4th Division) and the morning of the 24th saw them in reserve immediately behind the front line troops. Early in the morning, around 4am, there was another gas attack, heavy shelling and the front line troops called for help. Led by Major Christie, only about 50 men were available to respond. This map shows the position:
In the top right corner you can see Shell Trap Fm (Farm), the British nickname for a farm building. Just below it and to the left, running diagonally is a red line with the blue writing "retrenchment" - this was where the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders started from.
This is the handwritten recommendation of a medal for Major Christie. The attack was beaten back and the A&SH men withdrew (they had now ceased to exist as a cohesive fighting unit) and it was at some point during events Daniel suffered a wound to his abdomen.
This is the approximate site of the A&SH attack today - the battalion would have been in trenches to the left and advanced left to right towards the farm, then known as Shelltrap farm.
The stretcher bearers or his mates got him back and he was taken to Number 8 Casualty Clearing Station. A letter from the sister in charge to Daniel's mother, Isabella, describes what happened:
Daniel died on 31st May, 1915, aged 21. Robert and Isabella would have received this letter at 3a Douglas Place where they now lived. At the end of the war, as the Commonwealth War graves Commission was reburying bodies with permanent grave markers, all next-of-kin were asked if they wanted a message inscribed. This record shows the words for Daniel (second row):
Note the pencilled figure on the right hand side; I believe this to be 12 shillings and sixpence, based on 43 letters in the requested wording.
On the anniversary of his death in 1921, the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald carried the following:
The nurse who wrote the letter to Daniel's mother was Marguerite Elizabeth Medforth (1879-1966). Daughter of a corn merchant in Bridlington, she grew up in a house with servants, but was a hospital nurse by the age of 22 and joined the military in 1906, serving overseas (including Egypt) before 1914. After the war she rose to be Matron in Charge of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and was awarded the CBE.
With many thanks to Monty Medforth for posting this information.
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