James Craig

I started the search with the name "James Craig" on the war memorial at Bearsden Cross.

Using the Commonwealth War Graves Commission search facility only one man named James Craig had a link to Bearsden.  He was 30 years old when he died and was the son of James and Catherine Craig.  He died on 10th April 1941 and was an Assistant Steward on a Merchant Navy Ship called the Thirlby.

From the Merchant Navy record of his death, his home address was 1 Thompson Drive, and I could confirm that in the 1940 Valuation Roll the occupier was James Craig, painter.

To find more about James's early life I needed to know more about his parents.  I searched on Scotland's People for people with the surname "Craig" who died in Bearsden (more accurately "New Kilpatrick") between 1941 and 1970.  There was only one James Craig and he died at 1 Thompson Drive on 23rd January 1952.  His occupation was "master painter", matching the 1940 valuation roll.  His wife name was Catherine McCreadie.

I went to the marriage search on Scotland's People, typed in James Craig and Catherine McCreadie and there was only one hit - in 1906 in Rothesay, which fitted well with the birth of their son, James in 1910 or 1911.

On 30th October 1906 they were married at The Manse, Rothesay.  James (senior) was 25, a coachmaker and son of a farmer.  Catherine was 23, a domestic servant, daughter of a steel worker.

I wanted to know how many brothers and sisters James had so using Scotland's People I went to the search page for birth records and searched on surname Craig, mother's maiden name McCreadie from 1906 to 1933 (when Catherine would have been 50).  There were ten matches, but only five mentioned McCreadie specifically and of these four were in Rothesay (including James).  From this we can tell their children were Archibald (1907), Catherine Ann (1909), James (1911) and Albert Kennedy (1917).

Opening James's birth record shows he was born on 23 March 1911 at 20 Bishop Street, Rothesay.

The 1911 Census took place two weeks later so I was not expecting much new.  I searched for people called Craig in Rothesay so finding the record was easy.  The first thing I noticed was that while James and Catherine had had three children up to that point, only two were still alive.  Their first born, Archibald, was dead.

The next thing I noticed was that they lived in a property with three rooms but on Census Day they still had two visitors so four adults and two young children in this space.  

Number 20 is the pink house on the left - the ferry terminal is visible at the end of the street.

James senior's occupation was coachman / carriage hirer.  However, one of his visitors, Neil McPhail from Renfrew, was a house painter which may have influenced James senior's later career.

In 1921 they were still in Rothesay at the time of the Census, now at 3 Bishop Terrace Brae, in a three room flat - parents, three children and a boarder.  We can now see James senior was originally from Dunoon and Catherine from Bothwell.  James senior's occupation was now a "commission agent".

James went to sea aged 18.  There is a record of him being employed as a bugler on the California, dated 13th September 1929.  (Note there seem to have been two ships at the time with this name - the evidence strongly suggests James was on the one built in Linthouse, Glasgow in 1923 and operated by the Anchor Line.  the other ship was a larger liner built in America and working in the Pacific.)

California in New York, Statue of Liberty on the left

From here all we know is from the original CWGC record, that James was assistant steward on a merchant navy ship called the Thirlby:

This ship was part of convoy SC-26 from St Johns, New Brunswick in Canada to Liverpool with a cargo of wheat.  The convoy had 23 merchant ships and one armed escort, a ship that had guns to oppose German ships but had no anti-submarine capacity.  Sailing on 20th March 1941, the convoy was spotted on 2nd April and seven submarines moved in to attack.

That night one ship was sunk ships were sunk and the Thirlby stopped to rescue survivors.  Early the following morning, with five ships sunk (25% of the total that sailed) the decision was made for the ships in the convoy to split up.  A further five ships were sunk and Thirlby was hit by a torpedo that damaged her but she was able to continue.

The danger was not yet over - as they neared Britain, they also came in range of German aircraft operating at extreme range from bases in north west France.  On 10th April, one of these bombed the Thirlby and James and another crewman were killed.

James is commemorated on the monument on Tower Hill for sailors with no known grave as well as at Bearsden Cross.