224865 Pte. George Laird Taylor British Army 8th Btn. Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) from:Courthill, Inverkielor, Forfarshire (d.25th Sep 1915) George Laird Taylor was my great uncle. I knew about him from an early age because to the inscription on the family gravestone in my local church which listed him as "Killed in France 1915, Aged 17". It wasn't until recently, however, that I discovered this information contained an uncomfortable, but shockingly common, revelation - my uncle was under age when he died. The law (and British Army Regulations) at the time stated that to serve overseas a soldier had to be 19 years old, and yet his gravestone clearly stated he was only 17 when he died.
Armed with the knowledge that "boy soldiers" of his age, and younger, were allowed or encouraged to join-up in order to fill the ranks of "Kitchener's Army" I started to look deeper. Using the excellent Commonwealth War Graves Commission website I was quickly able to confirm not only his unit, service number, date of death and the battle in which died but also the fact that his age was known to the authorities at the time.
Further research indicated that sometimes families "rounded up" their son's ages on commemorative gravestones at home so I wanted to find out more by trying to find his true date of birth. Again, the CWGC site was invaluable as it not only gave great uncle George's full name but also that of his parents and his home address. Using that information I tracked down his birth date from the online records available from the Scottish National Archives. This confirmed he was born in July 1898 so was 17 years and 2 months old when he was killed.
As a member of the 8th (Service) Battalion Black Watch my great uncle would have been only 16 when he joined up and still not 17 when it arrived in France as part of the 9th (Scottish) Division on 10th May 1915. Less than five months later he was killed in action on 25th September 1915 - one of the 500+ casualties his battalion suffered in the fighting round the formidable German stronghold called the Hohenzollern Redoubt during the Battle of Loos. The most famous casualty of the battalion in that action is probably Fergus Bowes-Lyon, an older brother of the future Queen and late Queen Mother Elizabeth who was killed on 27 September.
Having found all that out, I am now looking for pictures so, hopefully, I can put a face to the name. I will be trying family but would appeal to anyone reading this who has connections to the 8th Battalion for anything they might have in terms of group photos or newspaper clippings that may have my great uncle in it. I live in the USA, but will be in Holland in the week before the 100th anniversary of his death. I intend to travel down to the area to "walk the ground" and pay my respects at the Loos Memorial to a man I never knew (and who has no known grave) but who died fighting in a war to protect the country I had the privilege to be born and grow up in.
|