STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 2 ROBERT BLAIR, PRIVATE HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY, AGED 33.




“The Devil Dwarfs, as they became known on account of their reputation for tenacity and mischief, enjoyed an excellent press. After all, while some taller men were backward in coming forward, these men volunteered to fight, despite their height, which had been a cast-iron excuse for staying at home.”
Robert Blair joined what was known as a “Bantam Battalion” for men under regulation size but otherwise fit for service.
By contrast with the wealth of material about Jack Barr, to date we have no letters or testimonials about the second soldier on Strathblane War Memorial – Robert Blair – and not a single photograph of this Private from the Highland Light Infantry. However, a search of statutory records, census returns and regimental archives enables us to piece together a picture of his life.
He was born and grew up in Perthshire. His birth was recorded in November 1884 at Bankhead, near Forteviot, where his father William Blair was a farm servant. As his mother Jane was already in her mid-40s, Robert was almost certainly their youngest child. By the time of the 1891 Census, the family, including six-year old Robert, had moved to a cottage in Dron. By 1901, 16-year old Robert was already working as a ploughman in Aberdalgie, though still living with his parents.
A decade later he was one of four gardeners at the spectacular 16th century Castle Menzies in Weem. (Seat of the Clan Menzies for more than four centuries, it has the distinction of having hosted both Bonnie Prince Charlie and his nemesis, the Duke of Cumberland, in the run-up to the Battle of Culloden in 1746.)
In March 1913, less than 18 months before the outbreak of World War 1, 28-year old Robert married Catherine Beattie, a 40-year old Glasgow widow. By this time he had moved to Tillyochie in the parish of Kinross, though was still working as a gardener.
So how did he end up on the Strathblane War Memorial? That mystery was solved by reference to the 1915/16 valuation roll. By this time Robert was employed as gardener at Carbeth Guthrie, a property on the Barns Graham estate near Blanefield, and living in an estate house. The tenant at Carbeth Guthrie is given as Charles Spence Weir, East India Merchant of the Glasgow-based company of Ker, Bolton & Co.
Robert had enlisted by October 1916, though we do not know whether he volunteered before May when married men were conscripted. However, his Battalion, the 18th Highland Light Infantry, has a surprising and little known history.
It was formed in early 1915 by the Lord Provost of Glasgow as a “Bantam Battalion”, the name given to those under the regulation height of 5ft 3ins (160cm) but otherwise fit. The first Bantam Battalion was formed by the Cheshire Regiment after Arthur Bigland, MP for Birkenhead, heard about a group of local miners rejected by every recruiting office on account of their small stature. He successfully pressed the War Office for a change in the regulations and soon other regiments began to recruit bantam formations. The War Office initially refused to sanction the formation of the 18th HLI but relented as the need grew for men to replace the huge casualties being incurred on the Western Front.
Posters plastered along the sides of Glasgow trams read “Bantams for the Front – 3000 Wanted – Apply 46 Bath St”. Almost immediately 1200 men signed up. “The Devil Dwarfs”, as they became known on account of their reputation for tenacity and mischief, enjoyed an excellent press. After all, while some taller men were backward in coming forward, these wee guys were volunteering despite having a cast-iron excuse for staying at home. (For further information, see The Bantams: the untold history of World War One by Sidney Allison. The Bantams of the HLI are also the subject of a novel, The Wee Fellas by Richard Maitland.) Other bantam divisions were formed in Edinburgh and Hamilton. In fact, between Canada and the UK, 50,000 bantam soldiers enlisted.
Another young man whose name appears on Strathblane War Memorial mentions the Bantams in a letter home in February 1916. William Edmonstone wrote to his father (Sir Archibald Edmonstone of Duntreath): “We have some members of a Bantam battalion attached to us, who must not be more than 5ft 3ins and often less than 5ft. They look very funny amongst our men!”(William was more than 6ft 3ins.)
The 18th HLI trained in Ayrshire, North Yorkshire and Salisbury Plain before being shipped to France in February 1916. We know that Robert was wounded during that year because his name appears on a casualty list in the HLI Chronicle in October.
He ended his life in another part of the British Army, the Labour Corps, formed in January 1917 to service the needs of the army and maintain infrastructure. There are two possible reasons for this switch. Around 2,800 bantams were transferred to the Labour Corps after failing army medicals. However, Robert was probably moved because he had been injured and was no longer deemed fit for frontline service. (Are we sure Robert was a bantam soldier? It seems very likely. The 18th HLI ceased to be a bantam regiment at the end of 1916 but by that time Robert had moved on to the Labour Corps.)
It says much about the second-class status of the Labour Corps that men like Robert Blair who died serving in it are commemorated under their original regiments.
Yet, though not fighting in the front line, these men were often deployed for lengthy periods within range of enemy guns. Private Blair appears to have been killed in what is known as the Ypres Salient, the area stretching north-east from the town of Ypres in Belgium. It witnessed some of the biggest battles in World War 1, including the Fifth Battle of Ypres in August 1918 which ended by pushing German forces out of the area for good.
Part of the tragedy of Private Blair’s death is that he so nearly made it to the end of the war, dying on September 7 1918, barely two months before the Armistice. Of the 27 men on the Strathblane memorial, only one other died closer to November 11 when hostilities ceased.
Robert Blair is commemorated in Enclosure 3 at Voormezezeele, south of Ypres. His plot is among those created after the Armistice when graves were brought in from isolated sites and smaller cemeteries to replace French graves that were removed to a French cemetery. In 1921 Catherine Blair applied for Robert’s war medals: a poor substitute for the man who had walked her down the aisle eight years before.