Larbert's War Memorial

129 Larbert and the Great War The Men of Larbert War Memorial Russell MacGillivray FALKIRK LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY Larbert and the Great War published in 2017 by Falkirk Local History Society 11Neilson Street, Falkirk. ©Russell MacGillivray 2017 No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form, without the prior permission of Falkirk Local History Society ISBN 978 0 9560480 6 6 Falkirk Local History Society is very grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the generous grant that has allowed the author to conduct his extensive research and the Society to publish the results. The grant is part of the national World War 1 project which was established to encourage the study of the impact of the Great War 1914-18 on local communities. Cover Design by James Hutcheson Printed in Scotland by Bell and Bain Limited, Glasgow Contents FOREWORD PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 Larbert in 1914 1 2 The Great War 2 3 Larbert’s War Memorial 7 4 War Medals 9 5 Western Front Memorials to the Missing 10 6 The Men of Larbert War Memorial 13 7 Deaths by Regiment 219 8 Deaths by Theatre 234 9 Calendar of Deaths 250 10 Larbert Officers 258 11 Morale and Discipline 260 12 The War Memorial 267 APPENDIX Analysis of the Men of Larbert War Memorial 270 ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY 273 BIBLIOGRAPHY 275 INDEX 279 Reverend John Fairley Minister of Larbert Parish Church (1902-1931) “Shall Larbert ever forget them? Should their names not be handed down to unborn generations as those who helped to save their nation in its hour of need.” August 1917 “Every man in the ranks who slowly climbed out of the protecting trench and at the bidding of his officer laboriously started on his journey across ‘no man’s land’ to attack an entrenched enemy deserved the highest honour his country could give him. There was no sound of drum, pipes, or trumpet to encourage him, no gallant charge, no cheers from onlookers, no excitement, only a tired and often very weary man, heavily loaded with ammunition, bombs, kit, gas mask and rifle, getting out with difficulty from his trench where he felt comparatively safe and slowly moving across an open space, with the certain knowledge that it was fairly long odds that he would be killed or wounded. Millions did it and many lived to do it more than once.” Captain Alexander Stewart, “A Very Unimportant Officer”, writing in 1928 “In civilian life it is extremely difficult for the average man to discover and sort out the Men from the Monkeys: in war there is no such difficulty; for when death is a near neighbour the mask of convention is torn away, and one can gaze into a man’s soul.” Lieutenant-Colonel W D Croft, “Three Years with the 9th (Scottish) Division (1919) “We are often tempted to ask ourselves what we gained by the enormous sacrifices made by those [to whom this memorial is dedicated]. But that was never the issue with those who marched away. No question of advantage presented itself to their minds. They only saw the light shining on the clear path to duty. They only saw their duty to resist oppression, to protect the weak, to vindicate the profound, but unwritten, law of nations. They never asked the question ‘What shall we gain?’ They only asked the question ‘Where lies the right?’ Winston Churchill, speaking on 25 April 1925 at the unveiling of a memorial to the Royal Naval Division Foreword When Falkirk Local History Society was formed So here are the men of Larbert and back in 1981 one of the aims was to encourage Stenhousemuir facing near certain death at research into the rich history of our district and Ypres and the Somme, struggling in the mud to help bring the results to the public in of Passchendaele, landing on the Suvla beaches whatever form seemed the most appropriate. in Gallipoli or following the tanks into no- Since then we have produced many articles, man’s land at Amiens and Cambrai. Russell journals and books and built up a has used many different types of source material comprehensive website covering everything to piece together their lives before the war and from Roman times to the modern era. My own while in service including where possible the interest has always been in those events that circumstances of their deaths in action. It is have both a local and national dimension and an outstanding piece of research and writing in this we are very fortunate because our and it has been a great privilege for Falkirk geographical position has meant that soldiers, Local History Society to be involved in the civil engineers and industrialists have often production and publication of this excellent crossed our land, or chosen to fight here or book. It is a true gift to future generations and build their new enterprises in this central part a fitting tribute to the fallen. of Scotland. My own part has included assembling as Of course there are other ways in which many images of the fallen soldiers as possible external events visit our towns and villages and and I spent many hours poring through copies the world wars of the 20th century are examples; of the Falkirk Herald. Each week from about the eighteen local war memorials remind us that April 1915 on the paper carried a section called over 3000 men of the district gave their lives in FOR KING AND COUNTRY with anything the ‘Great War’ of 1914-18. Each year when from 6 to 36 small grainy images of young men people from each small community gather in in uniform, recording for the community that remembrance they promise never to forget the they had ‘died of wounds’ or were ‘missing sacrifice of the fathers, brothers, sons and presumed killed’. Their faces appear husbands who left the foundries, farms, mines, throughout this book and will live with me for shops, offices and factories to answer the call and a very long time to come. did not return. Inevitably perhaps, after 100 Russell is now planning research for a years, they are most often remembered as a group second volume which will tell the stories of with their individual stories lost with the passing the many men with Larbert connections who of their immediate families, which is a great pity. died in the war but whose names are not on These ordinary young men who did extraordinary the Larbert Memorial but appear on other things surely deserve more. plaques in churches, companies, sports clubs Russell MacGillivray is very much a local man, and the rest. In addition he will record the born and brought up beside Bellsdyke Hospital. memories of local people who lived through The War Memorial outside the Dobbie Hall with the war either at home or in service and have its 286 names was an ever-present feature of his left us a record of these astonishing times. We schooldays. When he became a history teacher at hope this will be completed and published in Larbert High School the First World War was 2018 as the centenary commemorations draw always an essential topic in the syllabus and this to a close led to a determination to find out as much as he could about each man on the local memorial. But Ian Scott more than this, he wanted to tell the story of the Chairman most terrible of wars through the lives of those Falkirk Local History Society who fought and died. August 2017 (i) (ii) Preface I began to read the Falkirk Heralds of the First Larbert in the 1960s was still very much like World War when preparing for the first Larbert Larbert at the time of the First World War - High School pupils’ trip to the battlefields sites four villages, Larbert, Stenhousemuir, Carron in France and Belgium. I thought it would and Carronshore running into one another but make the trip a more impressive and relevant in a rural setting. There was plenty of experience if we could locate where local employment in the Larbert area, in more or less soldiers had been buried or commemorated. the same factories as in 1914-18, particularly The first thing I had to do was to go along to the foundries. The domination of heavy the War Memorial at the Dobbie Hall and make industry meant that the community’s efforts in a list of the names. Then the questions begin. the Great War would be affected in particular Who were these men named on the memorial? ways. Larbert was also known for its hospitals, How old were they when they went to war? Bellsdyke Hospital and the Royal Scottish What jobs did they do before they joined up? National Hospital; these names arrive after What family did they leave behind? How did 1918. Both had large numbers of patients and they die? Fortunately, as I now know, the local staff. The shops, churches and houses of the newspaper, the Falkirk Herald, provides plenty early 20th century mostly survived to the 1960s; of information about a majority of the men and the pubs and the sports. Of course there on the memorial. Nowadays, gathering the were changes as indicated by the inter-war basic information about the soldiers who died council housing schemes and the more in the First World War is comparatively easy. extensive post-1945 schemes. In the early But when the award of Heritage Lottery 1960s private housing estates were being built funding to Falkirk Local History Society in Larbert and Stenhousemuir, beginning the allowed me to extend my researches, I was trend that now means that the ‘rural setting’ determined to find out as much as I could about has gone.

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