James Lawson Coull

Many thanks to Margaret for the photo.

James Lawson Coull was born on 1st February 1897 at Dunclutha Cottage in Bothwell.  James's parents were David Duncan Coull, a gardener, and his wife Margaret (Maggie) Cullen.  James probably worked for John Boyd, an engineer, who owned Dunclutha House.  

Like Bearsden, Bothwell was semi-rural at the time as this map shows:

Note the River Clyde gliding through the map, David Livingstone's birthplace to the left.  The very prominent railway is the Glasgow, Bothwell, Hamilton and Coatbridge Railway, built to serve coal mines in the area:

Dunclutha Cottage seems to have been right up against the embankment as the line rose to cross the River Clyde:

We can actually see the cottage and Dunclutha House in this slightly grainy photo from 1920 looking across the viaduct from the Blantyre side to Bothwell:

For more superb photos of the viaduct click here and for a sad update on what remains click here.

We don't know how long the family stayed here but by the time of the 1901 Census they were in Kilmarnock, living in the Gardener's House at Dean Castle:

The older castle is to the right, the grand house the latter-day owner lived in is to the left.  James and his family lived in the gardener's house which I suspect to have been the buildings further back

They stayed there until at least 1905 (James's brother David and sister Margaret were born there) but by 1911, the family had moved again, this time to a three-room cottage in Lochwinnoch on the estate of Glenlora House:

Within the next few years they moved again, for the last time in James's short life, to settle at Ledcameroch, Bearsden.  This house has now gone, to be replaced by houses in the area known as Ledcameroch Park:

Bearsden Cross is off the map in the top right, Station Road is just visible at the bottom.  Ledcameroch Road starts to emerge in its original role, as the driveway to Ledcameroch House (ringed in red).

From the 1915 Valuation Roll, we can see that the main house was occupied by a stockbroker called John Gow and that the Coull family lived in the lodge at the end of Ledcameroch Road 

In the map above, the lodge is located at the start of the driveway to Ledcameroch House.  Here is the site today:

The Lodge would have been on the left, just past the pillar.

Here are some photos of Ledcameroch House before it was demolished:

From the map the main entrance was probably facing the driveway on the east side, therefore the first photo is probably the west side (towards Chesters Road) and the second photo (which shows the main entrance in shadow on the right) is probably the south side of the house.  This would approximate the view of the house from the lodge.  (David and Maggie lived here until at least 1935.)

All of which tells us nothing directly about James.  Presumably when he was 18 (February 1915) he joined the army, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and was posted to the 1st/5th Battalion.  They were already in Egypt, having been evacuated from Gallipoli in January 1916.

James would have probably been trained at a depot in the UK, then sent out as a replacement with a group of soldiers also assigned to the battalion.  They would probably have taken a ship from the UK to Marseilles.

This photo of the port of Marseilles is actually from 1944 but gives an idea of what a busy place it would have been.

James and his colleagues then embarked on a converted Cunard liner called the Ivernia.  Lest that sound as though it might have been quite luxurious, the Ivernia was designed to carry large numbers of migrants across seas, mainly in third class (the cheapest fare).  Records suggest 2400 'passengers' were on board when it sailed on 28th December 1916 bound for Alexandria.  HMS Rifleman escorted the Ivernia and there also seem to have been accompanying trawlers (although I would have thought the liner was much faster).

On 1st January 1917, four days out from Marseilles, the ship was passing through the Kythria Strait:

Marseilles is in the top left corner, Alexandria is bottom right.  The Kythria Strait is the name of the sea in between the north-west corner of Crete and the mainland of Greece, shown by the red circle.  It was and is a busy shipping lane with most ships passing to and from Athens, Turkey and the Black Sea passing through.  This also made it an obvious place for an enemy submarine to patrol.

Unlike in the Second World War, Germany had not over-run France and the journey from German ports to the Mediterranean was long and hazardous.  However, Germany's ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, controlled much of the Balkans area and so the German Navy was able to transport submarines in segments from Germany by rail to a base at Pola in today's Croatia where they were reassembled in a shipyard and launched against comparatively poorly defended British, French and Italian ships.

At 10.12 am the ship was struck by a torpedo which penetrated the side and exploded in the boiler room, killing 22 of the crew.  HMS Rifleman had time to come alongside and take off 666 troops and 36 crew.  other survivors were rescued by trawlers, presumably from life boats and clinging to wreckage.  Nevertheless 84 troops died, including James, as well as 36 crew.

As James had no known grave he was commemorated on the Mikra Memorial.

This commemorates almost 500 people who died when ships were sunk, either by torpedo or mine, in the Mediterranean in the First World War.

As his next-of-kin, James's mother was awarded a pension of seven shillings per week; I estimate this to be about £30 in current prices.

Footnote

A letter from Lieutenant Hall of the Cheshire Regiment who survived the Ivernia's sinking: (thanks to the IWM website)

On New Year's Day a submarine got us... I immediately went to my boat station... the boats hold about forty... a very heavy sea was running... owing either to the carelessness... of those at the davits or to some of the gear breaking, the falls at the stern of our boat were allowed to run out, thus pitching us fifty feet downwards into the sea, and the boat and its contents, oars, masts, etc came on top of us. Luckily nothing struck me. This happened at five minutes past eleven in the morning, my watch stopping at that time... I managed to get hold of a boat... and hung on there for some time, but could not get in... when I was getting a bit dazed and nearly played out, some kind person dragged me on board a raft, and after bringing up most of the salt water I had swallowed, I began to sit up... We got clear of the sinking ship, and then our job was to keep the raft head on to the seas. There were fourteen of us on the raft. After knocking about for over four hours, continually drenched by heavy seas which gradually got worse, we were picked up by a destroyer... at four o'clock in the afternoon. On the destroyer I got a warm change of clothing, hot cocoa, brandy, etc and felt much better. We were landed at Crete next day and spent a week on that island, and later a transport arrived and brought us all safely to Alexandria. I lost all my kit of course... [and] sustained a few bruises, including a black eye... it was remarkable that so many were saved... It was a most peculiar sensation to see the fatal line of bubbles approaching the ship and waiting for the explosion... We had well over 2,000 on board... Two destroyers and a couple of trawlers accomplished some good [rescue] work...