Robert Walker Macindoe Coubrough, Lance Cpl Highland Light Infantry, aged 23
Robert was born in September 1894 at Craigend Farm, Campsie Glen, the second son of farmer John Coubrough and Jessie Walker Macindoe, who had married at Knowehead, Campsie in June 1889. His mother died when he was less than two years old. The 1901 Census finds six-year old Robert and his brother James aged eight, being cared for by their father’s 38-year old spinster sister Jemima, while their father is a travelling salesman for a chemical manufacturers as well as a farmer.
Robert enlisted in the 9th Battalion HLI (the Glasgow Highlanders) and is also recorded as belonging to the Queen’s Own Royal Glasgow Yeomanry. The family gravestone in Strathblane Cemetery records that he died “somewhere in France” on October 26, 1917. His name also features on the famous Tynecot Memorial to the Missing. This bears the names of nearly 35,000 soldiers, mostly from the Ypres Salient, including many thousands who died in the infamous Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendale). Robert was almost certainly one of them.
His father lived latterly in Strathblane Road, Milngavie. Robert’s name features on the Milngavie War Memorial.
