STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 5 WILLIAM DEVLYN, PRIVATE HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY, AGED 22.
“Mr Devlyn was a popular member of the local tennis club and was much esteemed by his many friends. It is intimated that he was killed doing his duty in the trenches along with his platoon.”
Glasgow Herald March 2, 1915.
The fifth name on Strathblane War Memorial belongs to 22-year old William Devlyn, a private in the 9th Bn Highland Light Infantry, the battalion raised in Glasgow and known as the Glasgow Highlanders. William was an early volunteer and was killed in early 1915, less than four months after landing in France. His voice comes down to us in a transcription of part of his personal war diary, written in the jaunty, conversational style of a young man with everything to live for. We also have the official war diary of his battalion, which reveals the many hardships and frustrations suffered by the troops and their perennial cheerfulness despite continual problems with equipment and supplies.
Tracing William’s connection with the parish of Strathblane was not straight forward. His parents, railway clerk William Devlyn and English-born Jessie Thomson, married in Glasgow’s Gorbals in December 1877. William Jr, born in McArlin St, St Rollox, in November 1892, was the sixth of their seven children. In the 1901 Census the whole family is recorded as living in a four-apartment in North Hanover St, Townhead, Glasgow, with William described as an eight-year old scholar. It is worth noting that his eldest brothers 20-year old Robert and 18-year old Matthew were both working as “ivory turners”, a pretty unusual occupation even then.
A decade later Robert and Matthew had turned this skill into their own business, manufacturing bowls for bowling greens, and William, now 18, was working in the business too. The 1911 Census shows Matthew and William sharing a home in Avenue Park St, off Maryhill Road. Meanwhile, their parents appear to have gone their separate ways, with the 55-year old railway clerk father sharing a home with 43-year old servant Janet Anderson in Shettleston.
The local connection is through William’s mother, Jessie Devlyn, who had moved to Blanefield by this time and was living in Burnside, the terrace on Station Road that was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the Weir Housing development. A valuation roll produced during the war also shows brother Robert Devlyn living round the corner at 1 Netherton Cottages, rented from John Coubrough, whose family had owned the former Blanefield Printworks.
William too probably lived in the community at some time, as he was later described as having belonged to Strathblane Tennis Club, which celebrated its centenary in 2013. The land was gifted by Clyde shipbuilder, Sir Alfred Yarrow, father of another young soldier on the war memorial, Lieutenant Eric Yarrow. The two young men may even have shared a set or two on the new courts before going off to a war from which neither would return.
We also know that William was “stepping out” with Nan McGregor, one of the two sisters who ran the community’s first telephone exchange in the building opposite the Blane Valley (formerly Netheton) Inn and now occupied by a convenience store and a delicatessen.
William was either already in the Territorials or volunteered for military service soon after the declaration of war in August 1914, when thousands were flocking to the recruiting stations every week. At this time many believed the war would be over by Christmas and viewed enlistment as a patriotic duty. He joined the Territorial Army regiment that had become the 9th (Glasgow Highland) Battalion of the HLI in 1908. It had its headquarters on Greendyke St beside Glasgow Green. (The story of the battalion was dramatised in 1995 in the Bill Bryden play The Big Picnic, starring Jimmy Logan. And it is the subject of Alec Weir’s book Come on Highlanders! The Glasgow Territorials in the Great War.)
William is in high spirits as his train steams out of Glasgow on October 31 for what he calls “Dumfermline”. But he has no sooner arrived at the HLI’s home war station and been inoculated than he is on his way to Southampton and off to France. “The camp in Havre is about five and a half miles from the quay and all up hill and after journeying so much, we arrived very tired and sore but this was only a touch of what was to come,” he writes.
William is soon engulfed in the fog of war. A despatch rider tells him the British troops are at breaking point and a big retreat is in prospect. Meanwhile the official news, displayed in the post office, is that the Germans have been driven back 25 miles.
In mid-November he reports that the battalion has been on a 13-mile march “and came into the billet soaked through and through, this while carrying a kit weighing about 70lbs, a rifle 9 ½ lbs and 250 rounds of ammunition is no joke but if you are on Active Service this must be carried through.” He has only limited sympathy for fellow soldiers facing a possible death sentence for deserting their watch posts during a hail storm.
He is cheered by letters from home: “It was a sight to see all the fellows crowding round the bags awaiting news from home. Some were happy who got some and others who got no letters looked on enviously and sadly. I myself happened to bag five letters and a tin of shortbread.”
On November 15 he hears that “on or before Wednesday we will be attached to a division, then if fate be with us, we will be in the fighting line within a week or a fortnight.”
His time is taken up with parades, kit inspections and training in increasingly wet and cold weather. Drying sodden kit becomes a major preoccupation. (He is fascinated by the harvesting of sugar beet, calmly proceeding a few miles from the front line.)
November 25 is William’s (unhappy) birthday: “We walked about six or eight miles to the trenches to take part in the battle of Ypres. This is the first time I have been under fire and I can tell you it is nothing to be desired. As I write this just now the Jack Johnsons are in operation and I thank God they are not properly ranged.” [Jack Johnsons were the nickname for the heavy black German 15-cms artillery shells, named after a Black American heavyweight boxing champion.]
At this point the battalion is at Kemmel, south-west of Ypres. William Devlyn is in B Company, half of which found itself in trenches too shallow to protect them from incoming fire, according to the official war diary. There is a gruesome reason for this as the diarist explained: “No effort was made to deepen them as the floor was found to be resting on the bodies of French soldiers covered with a few inches of earth and straw.”
On November 28 the men returned to their billets in a nearby rest area. “The conduct of the men throughout the operation was most satisfactory and they behaved with great steadiness in the trenches”, records the official diarist. A quantity of stores have arrived “including rifle oil, which was badly needed. The rifles are new and jammed badly in the trenches.”
On December 2 William writes: “Today we had the usual drill with a little trench digging thrown in. In the evening I went up the town and seen the King passing through.” Those are the final words in his diary.
We know from the official diary that the following weeks continued with blocks of time in the front line, interspersed with periods of training and down time in billets.
On January 8 the diarist records that the firing line companies were “much fatigued by standing so long in water. The men however were wonderfully cheerful during the six and a half mile march [back to their billets].”
By February 18 the Highlanders were at billets at Pont Tournant near Cuinchy, east of Bethune, when plans were revealed for a major attack the following day. The objective was to occupy a German trench from which it was believed a mine was being dug towards the British lines. Some Glasgow Highlanders were selected to take part in the storming party. We do not know whether William Devlyn was one of them. However, a subsequent report talks of him being “in the trenches” and so may have died as a result of enemy sniping or artillery fire.
Despite several casualties, the attack was considered a success, although no mine shaft was found. The diary names an officer badly wounded in the attack but does not mention individual privates. Nevertheless, this looks to have been how William Devlyn lost his life, though his date of death is given as February 21.
He is commemorated in the Guards Cemetery at Windy Corner, Cuinchy, as well as on the City of Glasgow Roll of Honour.
The following brief tribute appeared in the Glasgow Herald on March 2: “Killed in action in France on the 21st February; William Devlyn in his 23rd year, youngest son of Mrs Devlyn, Burnside, Blanefield.
“Information has been received in Blanefield of the death of Private William Devlyn B Company, Glasgow Highlanders. Mr Devlyn was a popular member of the local tennis club and was much esteemed by his many friends. It is intimated that he was killed doing his duty in the trenches along with his platoon. He was in business with his brothers, Messrs R & M Devlyn, 167 West Nile St, Glasgow.”
As an early volunteer into the war, William Devlyn qualified for three medals: the 1914 (or Mons) Star (awarded only to those who served in France and Belgium before November 23 1914) as well as Victory Medal and the British War Medal.
By a sad irony, the day of William Devlyn’s death was an otherwise unremarkable day in the official annuls of the Glasgow Highlanders. The entry for February 21 1915 reads: “Situation quiet. We have hired a piano and companies take it in turns to have concerts nightly. This is having an excellent effect upon their spirits.”
The McGregor sisters ran the telephone exchange for 39 years until their retirement in 1949. Nan – William Devlyn’s sweetheart – never married.