Bearsden War Memorial

I've spelled John's name as it appears in the birth records on the Scotland's People website.  Various sources spell his surname "Macbeth", spell Gilmore as "Gilmour" and use 0, 1 or 2 middle names. I'm indebted to members of The Great War Forum in their help with aspects of John's military service. John was born on 12th February 1883 at Dervaig on the Isle of Mull.   His father, John Gilmore McBeth was a teacher.  His mother was Betsy Gilmore Beaton and he had older siblings Malcolm, James and Jessie.  They lived at the school in Dervaig, shown here on a map from 1877: and here is the house today: This undated photo shows the village with the school house roof in the foreground: In the 1891 Census the family was at Dalvourn School, south of inverness: It's not as easy to spot the school house here, but the Census return puts it next the church and the manse: The church is now the Farr Free Church of Scotland, and the likely manse and possibl...

Cyril Sykes Whiteley was born on 15th June 1898 at 15 Hamilton Terrace in Partick.  This was subsequently renumbered as 47 Peel Street, opposite the cricket ground in Partick: Number 47 retains the bay windows; note the rest of Hamilton Terrace would have been to the left of the photo.  The modern properties replace those destroyed by a landmine on the night of 13th/14th March 1941, the Clydeside Blitz, when approximately 36 people died here. The family stayed here until 1907.  Cyril's father, Sykes Wheatley, gave his occupation as "writing master".  He ran Whiteley's Business Training College" at 75 Jamaica Street, describing itself as a school of shorthand, typewriting, bookkeeping and "civil service academy".  Number 75 was at the river end of the street, long gone under modern buildings. This photo is from 1905 showing the location of number 75 in the red oval, centre-right of the picture. Cyril had four sisters: Margaret and Ethel May were older, E...

John was born on 5th May 1896 at 41 Clarendon Street, just off Maryhill Road by St George's Cross. Clarendon Street is ringed on the right-hand side.  At its west end, Maryhill Road runs down to St George's Cross, the junction with Great Western Road (running diagonally from top left to bottom right), St George's Road (cutting across the bottom right corner) and New City Road (just visible in the bottom right).  Park Circus is bottom left and the River Kelvin on the left-hand side. His father was Thomas Pratt, who gave his occupation as "Landscape and Figure Painter".  He had married Ellen Gemmell Curdie in 1893. John was their first child, to be followed by Ellen Averell, Thomas Arthur and Arthur.  Another child, Margaret, died aged three days of an internal haemorrhage. Just after John was born, the family moved to 17 Courthill, Bearsden.  While this refers to the same general area as today the address "Courthill" referred to the houses on the north si...

Walter Haddow Kay was born on 28th April, 1888 at Stewart Place, Bearsden.  His father, William, gave his occupation as a master joiner (master implying some sort of enhanced status from length of time in the job, possibly belonging to a guild of some type).  He had married Walter's mother, Isabella Haddow, two and a half years earlier. Walter was the middle brother of three, younger than John but older than Hugh - they both reappear later in this story. By 1891 Walter's father was describing himself as "joiner and builder" in the Census and the family was living at 4 Kirk Place, Bearsden.  By 1895, William was the owner of 16 'properties' on Kirk Place (possibly 4 houses of 4 flats). In the late 1880s, what we would now call New Kirk Road was called Stewart Place.  The most easterly portion (next to the word "PLACE" in the map) was then been called Kirk Place. Walter's early life seems to have been dominated by two things: good academic performa...