John Colquhoun, Private Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, aged 19
On April 14 1917 the Stirling Observer reported the “death of a Strathblane man”, aged 19. In fact, John Colquhoun had never resided in Strathblane but was one of many holiday visitors whose family rented property left empty after the closure of the Blanefield Printworks in 1898. The Colquhouns had visited in the summer for many years and John was well known in the village. We can imagine him hiking in the Campsies, playing tennis on the new courts opened in 1911 or enjoying a pint at the Kirkhouse or the Netherton Inn (now The Blane Valley Inn).
He had been born at 32 Doncaster Street in Maryhill, Glasgow on August 2 1897, later moving to nearby Nansen St. His parents were Archibald Bell Colquhoun, a tailor originally from Paisley, and Maggie Brown from Aberdeen. They had married in 1895. John was the second of their four children and the only son. In the 1911 Census, John, aged 13, was a pupil at North Kelvinside School and Peggie aged 11 and nine-year old Mabel were also “scholars”. Meanwhile their eldest sister, 15-year old Jessie, had already left school and was working as a “tracer of plans for a locomotive builder”.
After leaving school, John became a clerk and by the time he was conscripted, the family had moved again to Lyndhurst Gardens, still in the Maryhill area. He joined the 11th Battalion of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, which was also known as Princess Louise’s Regiment. It had been formed in Stirling in September 1914 as part of Lord Kitchener’s Second New Army, K2.
The volunteers in 1914 had very few trained officers and NCOs to command them, little in the way of equipment and no organised billets. When they were inspected by the King that September, they all still wore their own clothes. The battalion moved round training camps for the next nine months and were eventually considered ready for France after uniforms were supplied and following an inspection by Kitchener. They landed at Boulogne in July 1915, though John was not conscripted until November of that year, following his 18th birthday in August, and would not see action until the following year during the Battle of the Somme.
According to the website The long, long trail, The 15th (Scottish) Division, of which his battalion was a part, “served with distinction on the Western Front …taking part in most of the significant actions and winning regard by the enemy as one of the most formidable in the British army”.
The division was engaged in the Battle of Pozieres, between July and August 1916, followed by the successful capture of Martinpuich during the Battle of Flers-Courcellette. During this battle tanks were used by the British for the first time. So new was this military hardware that a cartoonist in the London press, who had never seen one, depicted the tanks as looking more like giant armadillos.
There was to be no rest for the 15th Division as by October it saw action again in the Battle of Transloy. Early in 1917 the British and French planned a major spring offensive. While the French concentrated on the Aisne, the British were to make a diversionary attack around Arras a week beforehand. But before this offensive began with the Battle of the Scarpe on April 9, John sustained shell wounds in both legs and died of his wounds on April 7. He was 19.
He is commemorated at Duisans British Cemetery, Etrun, in Northern France, just west of Arras. This site was chosen as a casualty clearing station which is where John would have been taken when wounded. The first burials here started in March and soon escalated in early April 1917 as men were brought in from the fighting around Arras.
John is also remembered on the City of Glasgow Roll of Honour and the beautiful art nouveau North Kelvinside School War Memorial. Given that John was said to be well known in Strathblane on account of spending his summers here as a youth, his treatment contrasts with that of Lt Philip Binnie, whose family also rented a holiday home in the village. While Philip finds a place on the village war memorial, John does not. So this brief biography must stand as his memorial.
