what scottish regiment is this uniform?

[grindlay37]

this is a photo in our family of David Grindlay who apparently served in the Gordon Regiment &/or Machine Gun Corp in WW1, died at No. 6 Casualty Clearing Station, in France after the end of the war, on November 29, 1918. I did find a British Army record online at Ancestry (Service #4416) but had no mention of service with the Gordons or Machine Gun Corp,  (looks like with Argyll and Sutherland) so now am doubtful it's the right one??  

 

[rksimpson]

Hi

 

The only Grindlay who died on that day listed on CWGC is this one - https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/533841/j-grindlay/

I dont have an Ancestry subscription, but you can search for more under the one below

 

regards

 

Robert

 

Ancestry has a MIC for -

Name:	James Grindlay
Military Date:	1914-1920
Military Place:	England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, United Kingdom
Regiment or Corps:	Gordon Highlanders, Machine Gun Corps
Regimental Number:	12474, 28457

[grindlay37]

thank you so much for your post, that is indeed my man!  Looking at the war record on Ancestry for James, it mentions his real name of David a couple of times, as well as members of his family, so 99% sure it's the right one!  Think it's a case of him being to young to enlist under David, so "borrowed" his older brother's name of James?

thank you again, as probably would never have found/looked at that record otherwise...

 

[FROGSMILE]

Just to confirm your opening comment, the young fellow in the photo is wearing the uniform of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders with their distinctive Glengarry and it’s three rows of white dicing.  As he’s dressed in hose with spats and shoes the photo was probably taken soon after he enlisted in Britain.  It always seems even more of a tragedy when such young men died after the Armistice.

Edited 11 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[ss002d6252]

5 hours ago, grindlay37 said:

this is a photo in our family of David Grindlay who apparently served in the Gordon Regiment &/or Machine Gun Corp in WW1, died at No. 6 Casualty Clearing Station, in France after the end of the war, on November 29, 1918.

What evidence do you have in support of this that you can verify ?

His parent's pension claim.

https://www.fold3.com/image/668807423

Craig

[ss002d6252]

The war gratuity

tells us that

https://wargratuity.uk/war-gratuity-calculator/

Craig
 

[FROGSMILE]

[Reading between the lines] I suspect that he might have initially served with a training reserve battalion of the A&SH and then been drafted to the Cameron’s upon arrival at the infantry base depot in France, later transferring to the MGC (perhaps migrated as part of his Bde’s MG squadron when that corps was formed).

Edited 11 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[ss002d6252]

There's a medical register which shows David was hospitalised on 3 Dec 1915 due to Flat Feet. Noted as 8th Gordons at the time.

Looking further, the Cameron details are for his brother John who also died @FROGSMILE

Craig

[ss002d6252]

David/James has a service recrord - https://search-findmypast-co-uk.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/record?id=gbm%2fwo363-4%2f007385038%2f00216&parentid=gbm%2fwo363-4%2f7385038%2f7%2f215

He attested straight in to the Gordon Highlanders in August 1915 so I don't think picture can be of him.

Craig

[FROGSMILE]

Perhaps there was another brother (or maybe cousin) who served with the A&SH.

Does it appear that both brothers served with the MGC?

Edited 11 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[ss002d6252]

3 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

Perhaps there was another brother (or maybe cousin) who served with the A&SH.

Does it appear that both brothers served with the MGC?

Only David/James was Gordons/MGC, John was only Camerons (as far as I can see).

Craig

[FROGSMILE]

5 minutes ago, ss002d6252 said:

Only David/James was Gordons/MGC, John was only Camerons (as far as I can see).

Craig

Understood.  It seems like more family digging is required to ascertain who the very young A&SH fellow might be.

Edited 11 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[FROGSMILE]

23 minutes ago, ss002d6252 said:

There's a medical register which shows David was hospitalised on 3 Dec 1915 due to Flat Feet. Noted as 8th Gordons at the time.

Looking further, the Cameron details are for his brother John who also died @FROGSMILE

Craig

Flat feet is the kind of revelation that might have caused him to be moved to his battalion’s then MG section. 

[grindlay37]

thanks for all your help, and yes, sadly there was another brother, John who was killed in the war a year before (1917) also, he was with the Cameron Highlanders.

My theory is this -  would love everyone's opinions?!  David initially enlisted on 13 Sept 1914 (S/n 4416) lying about his age, he was only 16! Said he was 19 on Service record (surname mistranscribed as Grindley) found on Ancestry, and posted to Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (matches the photo) other details that match to my David being Next of kin,  and occupation etc. Service seems to only last to the 13/2/1915 - would they have found out his age and sent him home or flat feet??!  Nothing noted on service record about being discharged that I can see.

On 18 August 1915 signs on at Aberdeen with the Gordon Highlanders, using his brothers name James, S/n 28457, and again lying about his age.  When I look at the service record online at Ancestry, the various pages seem interspersed with the names David Grindlay/ or James Grindlay - but with same service number 28457.  Again next of kin, occupation and family members tie in with known family details.  Eventually ends up in the Machine Gun Corp.  Interestingly flat feet was given as the reason for a 51 day stint in hospital, so got posted to the Machine Gun corp after that?  I'm still trying to decipher a lot of the service record!!  think that may take awhile, lots of info in there!

 

[FROGSMILE]

On 11/11/2021 at 22:00, grindlay37 said:

thanks for all your help, and yes, sadly there was another brother, John who was killed in the war a year before (1917) also, he was with the Cameron Highlanders.

My theory is this -  would love everyone's opinions?!  David initially enlisted on 13 Sept 1914 (S/n 4416) lying about his age, he was only 16! Said he was 19 on Service record (surname mistranscribed as Grindley) found on Ancestry, and posted to Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (matches the photo) other details that match to my David being Next of kin,  and occupation etc. Service seems to only last to the 13/2/1915 - would they have found out his age and sent him home or flat feet??!  Nothing noted on service record about being discharged that I can see.

On 18 August 1915 signs on at Aberdeen with the Gordon Highlanders, using his brothers name James, S/n 28457, and again lying about his age.  When I look at the service record online at Ancestry, the various pages seem interspersed with the names David Grindlay/ or James Grindlay - but with same service number 28457.  Again next of kin, occupation and family members tie in with known family details.  Eventually ends up in the Machine Gun Corp.  Interestingly flat feet was given as the reason for a 51 day stint in hospital, so got posted to the Machine Gun corp after that?  I'm still trying to decipher a lot of the service record!!  think that may take awhile, lots of info in there!

 

Those caught underage early in the war and before the scale of the problem was realised were usually discharged and sent home.  Later more pragmatism had to be applied and if parents did not insist on discharge, and the age was not excessively young, boys were instead sent to training units in Britain, or if already in France, to training units within base depots at “the base” (coastal strip), in both cases until they came of age.

“Private Sidney Lewis joined the East Surreys at Kingston in August 1915, aged 12, and fought on the Somme front for six weeks at the age of 13. He was sent home in August 1916 after his mother contacted the War Office in London.  A letter addressed to Mrs Lewis on 23 August read: “I am directed to inform you that telegraphic instructions have been issued that he is to be at once withdrawn from the firing line and sent home for discharge.”

NB.  “Sidney re-enlisted, and at the war’s end was back in uniform, and still under age, still a machine-gunner, this time with the Guards Machine Gun Regiment in the Army of Occupation in Austria. Sidney later became a police officer and during WW2 served with a bomb disposal unit. He died in 1969, the landlord of a pub in Frant, East Sussex.”

Edited 27 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[david murdoch]

Going by the service record he enlisted in A&SH  S/4416 into 10th (Service)  Battalion on 13/9/1914 and discharged 13/2/1915.  I need to check Scotland's People for is birth certificate but he was born 1898 so only be 15/16 when he first enlisted, but stated he was 19 years and 5 months. He then appears to have re enlisted fairly quickly into Gordon Highlanders  as James Grindlay (still underage) on 18/8/1915 along the road at Kirkintilloch again saying he was 19 and 3 months! He got to France by 25/11/1915  with 8th Battalion Gordon Highlanders but then back to UK 26/12/1915 (again flat feet are mentioned) then transferred to MGC -arriving Grantham 14/3/1916.  He went back to France June 1916 and served with 120 Coy MGC.  There is a pretty badly burnt service record for him but in a couple of places his first name is noted as David. 

Going by this it appears his correct name was known/ discovered later, but he's listed on CWGC as J Grindly as he was enlisted as James.

In the Kilsyth Chronicle 18/12/1918 has  death notices for him as David Grindlay and age 20 years 8 months. So OP photograph  probably dates from September/October 1914 not long after he first enlisted.

Edited 13 November , 2021 by david murdoch

[FROGSMILE]

Excellent work David.  He was certainly a determined young fellow, and such a tragic ending, right at the close of the war, makes his story all the more poignant.  Thank you for posting.  Imagine someone making it through 5-years of industrial scale war that cost the lives of all their siblings today, only to then die of Covid 19.  It somehow puts it into perspective.

Edited 13 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[rksimpson]

spanish flu??

[FROGSMILE]

25 minutes ago, rksimpson said:

spanish flu??

It seems so.  The term wasn’t used in the trenches then (coined by the media).  “Acute influenza” seems to have been a common description.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

9 hours ago, david murdoch said:

but he's listed on CWGC as J Grindly as he was enlisted as James.

That's wrong.

Your image of the headstone and the CWGC database entry are both J. Grindlay:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/533841/j-grindlay/

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Just to make the pension record card clear in my own mind, and perhaps for the benefit of others:
The record card is a claim by the parents, in respect of two dead sons. Both of their details are on the card, but it isn't immediately obvious (at least to me) that these are separate datasets-

Cpl. David Grindlay 28547, 12th Bn. MGC (aka James, commemorated by CWGC as J.Grindlay) died 29/11/1918 &

Pte. John Grindlay, S/11711, 7th Bn., Cameron Highlanders, died 24/08/1917

 

[ss002d6252]

4 minutes ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

The record card is a claim by the parents, in respect of two dead sons. Both of their details are on the card, but it isn't immediately obvious (at least to me) that these are separate datasets-

Cpl. David Grindlay 28547, 12th Bn. MGC (aka James, commemorated by CWGC as J.Grindlay) died 29/11/1918 &

Pte. John Grindlay, S/11711, 7th Bn., Cameron Highlanders, died 24/08/1917

Yes.

The cards for multiple deaths are never very well laid out (although this is better than some).

Craig

[david murdoch]

1 hour ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

That's wrong.

Your image of the headstone and the CWGC database entry are both J. Grindlay:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/533841/j-grindlay/

Oops sorry that was just a typo on my part (corrected my post)- his name is spelt Grindlay. There are six Grindlays on the Kilsyth War Memorial and he is listed as David 

[david murdoch]

5 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

Excellent work David.  He was certainly a determined young fellow, and such a tragic ending, right at the close of the war, makes his story all the more poignant.  Thank you for posting.  Imagine someone making it through 5-years of industrial scale war that cost the lives of all their siblings today, only to then die of Covid 19.  It somehow puts it into perspective.

I've done a lot of research on Kilsyth casualties (and survivors) being my home town. I have a spreadsheet of all the names on the memorial and a lot who don't appear  - but who are just as qualified to be included. It's really down to the committee at the time. Some people chose not to have relatives included and other's had no family left there - being a mining town there were a lot of people moving in and out for work, or immigrated prior to the war so also quite a number of Australians and Canadians. I've got quite a few Influenza victims. One lad died 18/10/1918 and buried Doiran Military Cemetery, Greece , then his brother died 12/11/1918 - he is listed on Karachi War Memorial, but in fact is buried in abandoned cemetery in Abbottabad. By the newspaper their parents got word of their deaths just days apart. Having looked at the Abbotabad burials records it's clear it went right through 222Coy. MGC in a couple of weeks. Another died in France and his wife died in New York the same day she had notice of her husband's death. It shows how "global" it was.

[FROGSMILE]

4 hours ago, david murdoch said:

I've done a lot of research on Kilsyth casualties (and survivors) being my home town. I have a spreadsheet of all the names on the memorial and a lot who don't appear  - but who are just as qualified to be included. It's really down to the committee at the time. Some people chose not to have relatives included and other's had no family left there - being a mining town there were a lot of people moving in and out for work, or immigrated prior to the war so also quite a number of Australians and Canadians. I've got quite a few Influenza victims. One lad died 18/10/1918 and buried Doiran Military Cemetery, Greece , then his brother died 12/11/1918 - he is listed on Karachi War Memorial, but in fact is buried in abandoned cemetery in Abbottabad. By the newspaper their parents got word of their deaths just days apart. Having looked at the Abbotabad burials records it's clear it went right through 222Coy. MGC in a couple of weeks. Another died in France and his wife died in New York the same day she had notice of her husband's death. It shows how "global" it was.

Yes, the effect of Spanish Flu in terms of casualty lists (men’s names) can tend to be overlooked when it’s mixed up with all the other deaths.

Kudos to you for what you do to ensure remembrance.

Edited 13 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE