Born in 1888 at Glasgow, son of Richard (Tailor) and Emma Webster.1891: With his family at 44 Petty Street, Inverness. 1901: With his family at 5 St Thomas’s Terrace, Maybank Road, South Woodford. 1911: A Bank Clerk at the National Bank of India, and head of the family following death of his father, living at “Brockhill” 29 Lansdowne Road, South Woodford. He was an Old Bancroftian.
In 1916 he married Mabel Florence Anderson, and moved to their new home at "Hillside," 29 Butts Green Road, Hornchurch, Essex.
He joined the Inns of Court OTC when the bank released him for war service in 1915. Selected for the Machine Gun Corps he attended Cambridge Cadet School, and was commissioned on 28th December 1916 after a machine gun course at Aldershot.
Sent to France in March 1917, he had been with the B.E.F. since then. He was wounded badly in the thigh on 9th October 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele. Having placed his men under cover and ensured they were safe, he did not then have enough time to save himself. Evacuated to a Base Hospital at Boulogne, he died there “after much suffering”. His reputation for caring for his men would ultimately result in his death.
Research by Adrian Lee, Local Historian
Sources:
Ancestry.com
FindmyPast.co.uk
Woodford Times
The Bancroftian
For more information on this individual please see The Old Bancroftian website.