Gorgie and Beyond Nominal Indexes and Street Listing First World War Dead and Other Casualties of Gorgie, Dalry, Dundee Street, Slateford Road & Shandon areas, City of Edinburgh Compiled by Edward S Flint (The Edinburgh’s War Project Team is grateful to Edward Flint for his permission to reproduce his impressive and extensive research here) Edward Flint has also researched and compiled: “Bathgate Murder (Durhamtown) 1856”, The circumstances leading to the last public hanging in Linlithgow “An Account of the History, Families and Companies, associated with Bell’s Brewery, 46 Pleasance, Edinburgh (1755-1935)” “Fraser’s Highlanders, 71 Regiment of Foot, Lieutenant James Flint in the Revolutionary War, North America (1775-1783)” “Prisoner of the King of Kandy, on the Island of Ceylon, An account of Major Adam Davie (1764-1812)” Histories and tracings in “Flint Families of Scotland” Contents Preface Map Sketch – District of Gorgie Introduction - This Bloody War Abbreviations - General & Service Units Service Units Medals & Awards - Listing and function Bravery Awards - Recipients (93) Families at War - Deeds of Sons and Husbands Nominal Indexes - Died for King and Country (1631) Other Casualties - Wounded, gassed, prisoners etc. (393) Street Index Listings for dead and other casualties Event and Battle Dates Sketches - The Western Front and Gallipoli Manpower Requirements -The calls to arms and increasing demand Prisoners of War - Notes on their conditions Crushing Prussianism - An outline of terms imposed on Germany Preface For many years I have engaged in family history research, here in Scotland, on my own behalf and for others, concerning myself with ordinary folk rather than the famous and grand. In the memorial hall, formerly known as “The Little Church in the Field”, at Westfield Street, on the north side of Gorgie Road, Edinburgh, constructed around a small fireplace, there is a tall polished wooden cabinet, with plates upon which are the names of two hundred and forty servicemen, who died in consequence of the First World War (1914-1918). This work arose from a passing interest in learning a little about those men and their connection with Gorgie. However, my research gradually expanded to include sixteen hundred war dead and four hundred other casualties, who lived, were schooled, worked, were laid to rest, or in any other way linked with addresses in or about Dalry Road, Dundee Street, Gorgie Road, Shandon, and Slateford Road, lying north to south, between the Edinburgh Haymarket to Glasgow railway line, and the Union Canal. It includes nominal and street indexes, recipients of bravery awards, notes on families at war, their sons and husbands, names from war memorials, and ancillary material to provide some background. Folk may find it a useful tool, a starting point for their own family history research, but in doing so they should exercise caution in verifying what is presented here before proceeding. An address linked to individual, may not be that person’s home, but indicate family or friend there. Working from scant detail, perhaps only an initial, surname, and service unit, and employing calculation and guesswork to cross-referencing, I was fortune to collate a fair bit about certain individuals and their families, though in some instances found little or nothing. Information came from a variety of sources: • Burial registers • Headstones and memorials in Dalry, North Merchiston, and Saughton cemeteries • Memorial plaques pertaining to fallen employees of the North British Rubber Co. • Associates of St Michael’s Church • Newspapers, Edinburgh Evening News and The Edinburgh Dispatch • Published volumes, rolls of honour • “Soldiers Died in the Great War” • “War Graves of the British Empire”; • The National Archives of Scotland • Statutory registers • Census returns, electoral and valuation rolls • The Internet The search was wide, but this work should not be considered a full listing of war dead or containing other than a sample of other casualties for the area. This Bloody War In the years preceding the First World War, the Misses Dun, occupied the still existing ancient and large Gorgie House, near present-day 400 Gorgie Road. Edinburgh had expanded over former farmlands and the area from Haymarket and Viewforth westward for two miles to Chesser, bound on the north by the Edinburgh Haymarket to Glasgow railway line and south by the Union Canal, was home to a population of possibly over forty thousand souls, living mostly in street after street of crowded tenement properties. The more prosperous fellows and their families, professional people, might be accommodated in the colony or terraced houses off Dalry Road, and in the Harrison Park and Shandon vicinity. A typical tenement had three storeys above ground level, and nine or sixteen separate dwellings, each having a small entrance lobby with fitted coal bunker; kitchen/living room, containing bed recess, cold water tap sink bunker for bathing and cleaning, the room heated from an open fireplace with cooking, oven facilities, and illuminated by gas mantel lamp; one or two reasonable sized bedrooms; box room, often used as sleeping quarters, and an inside toilet. They housed large and frequently extended families of labouring and trades people. The 1911 census reveals that tenement at 10 Wardlaw Place was home to eighty men, women and children, and that street to some 1450, including 420 males who would be around fighting age during the coming war. Businesses and employment abounded nearby, in the trades, industry and commerce. There were Currie’s rubber works in Dalry Road, the North British Rubber Co., intercity and suburban railways, tramways along the main roads, furniture and cabinet maker factories, breweries, distilleries, dairies, bakers and biscuit factories, chemical manufacturers, Cox’s glue and gelatine works, a tannery, laundries, brass and iron foundries, Alder & MacKay, meter makers in Stewart Terrace, farming, still being practiced toward Chesser, a slaughterhouse, and employment in building trades, retail, particularly with St Cuthbert’s Coop., and council services. The suburban lines to Granton, Morningside and Newington, and tramways enabled people to travel further afield to work. Children might be educated at Boroughmuir, Dalry, Gorgie, North Merchiston and Tynecastle schools, or financial means allowing, private school, Heriot’s or George Watson. The number of pubs, including Walter Stratford’s, 227 Gorgie Road, at the foot of Stewart Terrace, and haunt of hearts fans, Tynecastle Arms, McLeod Street, probably equalled that of churches. Kirk session records indicate concern on the matter of temperance, to the point of volunteers calling on the wayward to offer salvation and promote religious instruction for the young, such as in the Wardlaw Lad’s bible club. The Salvation Army was not averse to blowing its trumpet and wakening the weary on Sunday mornings. Gorgie had its attractions, Heart of Midlothian F.C., played at Tynecastle Park, and there was a billiard saloon at 274 Gorgie Road. In 1904 Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West Show”, elephants, horses, Red Indian warriors, and Cossack riders, and more, pitched its tents at Gorgie Park, in the Moat area. Four years after that the mammoth Scottish National Exhibition held in Saughton Park, brought tens of thousands of visitors to the neighbourhood. Ordinary folk carried on with life, unaware of what the future held. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Prussian Germany were flexing muscle on subjugated states and in imperialist ambitions overseas, in Africa, in conflict with Czarist Russia and interests of the old colonial powers, Britain and France. The assassination in Sarajevo, Serbia, of the Archduke Ferdinand, was the spark which set fire to a bonfire of humanity, a war which cost millions of lives around the world. Treaties and obligations fell into place like falling dominoes. Germans troops invaded Belgium, and on 4th August 1914 Britain declared war against the aggressor. In Britain and throughout the British Empire, the call to arms was answered by men keen for the fray, seeking comradeship, adventure and glory, before it was “All over by Christmas”. Pte Thomas Borland, 18 Wardlaw Street, refused to accept discharge after just fourteen days service in the RAMC, on account of his deafness, and having been four times rejected for re-enlistment, was accepted for service in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He was killed in action 1917 at Arras. Pte Robert Fyfe Kilpatrick, only son of Rev. William Kilpatrick, Gorgie Manse, 4 Shandon Road, enlisted and was killed on the Somme. Rev. James Henry Hardy, 40 Briarbank Terrace, Captain & Chaplain was also killed At a recruiting gala held at Tynecastle Park, a captured German field gun was pulled around the football playing field by a military team, including Sgt Ripley V.C. and Sgt Robson V.C. (TED photo 18 Oct 1915) Edinburgh men and even boys lying about their age, rushed to enlist in the Services. For others there was the persuasion of peer pressure and the white feather marking them as coward to encourage them. They swelled the ranks of the Scottish regiments, favouring the Royal Scots, particularly Sir George McCrae’s 16th Battalion, with its contingent of football players from Hearts, Hibs and other Scottish teams. Among them were Hearts players, Pte James Hodge Speedie, 32 Polwarth Gardens, who was killed 1915, Corp Thomas Gracie, died of leukaemia in the same year, and Sgt Duncan Currie, 151 Slateford Road, Pte Ernest Edgar Ellis, 16 Gorgie Road & 25 Tarvit Street, Pte Henry "Harry" Wattie, 20 Livingstone Place, all killed 1916. The following photographs can be found in The Edinburgh Dispatch: • 1 Aug 1914 - Hearts players in civilian dress and wearing cloth caps • 27 Nov 1914 - Hearts players in football kit • 22 Dec 1914 - McCrae and Hearts players in military uniform • 27 Nov 1915 - McCrae and 16th Royal Scots players in football kit • 4 Dec 1915 - Hearts players, Sgt Currie & Pte Wattie, with Pte Crossan, gassed, wounded and discharged as unfit.