Eligibility for a name to be included on the War Memorial at Bearsden cross was by nomination and while there were probably eligibility rules, they seem to have been applied with a generosity of spirit appropriate to the circumstances. Thus, we have John Milligan Porritt, a brave man who paid with his life, but who may well never have set foot in Bearsden (or possibly even in Scotland).
He was born on 25th May 1882 in North Ormesby, Middlesborough, then in Yorkshire, the fifth child of eight (and his sisters are significant in explaining his link to Bearsden).
His father was William Henry Porritt (1841-1907) who advertised his work as a joiner, cabinet-maker and undertaker- but who described himself in the 1891 Census as “Twon undertaker”. He married Mary Milligan in 1865.
Aged 19, John was a clerk when he joined the army. This was not a complete surprise as he had served with the volunteers, the Durham Rifles, but he was sent to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. He described his unit as the Yorkshire Yeomanry but his service records record him as Trooper Porritt, 75 (Sharpshooters) Company, 18th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry.
The army, having expanded quickly to fight in South Africa, contracted quickly when the war was over and John was a civilian again. He may have taken over his father’s business as there are adverts in a local paper to this effect:
This seems too close a match to be interpreted in any other way but the adverts were also appearing when he was in South Africa – it’s possible he took over before enlisting, renamed the company, and it was then run by employees while he was away (maybe?)
For whatever reason, John’s next move was to America and in November 1907 he signed papers on arriving at Boston announcing his intention to revoke loyalty to the UK (especially King Edward VII) and to become an American citizen.
It probably wasn’t what he had in mind (was work harder to find then he had expected?) but eight months later, July 1908, he enlisted in the US Army and in the 1910 Census he was at Fort Slocum, Delaware.
In 1911 presumably when his term was up, he re-enlisted.
His story becomes a little unclear at this point (maybe I have missed something) because the next time we see him in the records it is just under three years later and he is getting married in Canada. He recorded his occupation as signwriter and this was on the occasion of marrying an English-born immigrant, Emma Landen, on 15 August 1914. Her address at the time was “R.R. Number 2, Cannington, Ontario” (which is roughly 50km north-east of Toronto). She was born in Oxfordshire in 1891, and moved to Canada 1913, seemingly alone.
Six weeks later John enrolled in the Canadian Army on 28th September 1914 in Valcartier, Quebec City (just over 800km east of Cannington where Emma was). Britain had declared war on 4th August, just before John and Emma were married, the Canadian Army would have been expanding rapidly and the recruiters must have been delighted to have an experienced soldier, even irrespective of his citizenship.
On his papers, John is described as 5 feet 8 and a half inches tall, dark complexion, grey eyes, hair dark brown, weight 150 pounds.
Assigned to 17th Infantry Battalion, he had been promoted to sergeant of the pioneer section, but at his own request, he was ‘returned to the ranks’ (made a private) and transferred to the 13th Battalion. It’s possible he wanted to be in the fighting and saw this as the best way to achieve it.
In 1917 he was in the frontline in France. We don’t know exactly how long he had been there or which battles he had fought in; while his service records are available these are essentially administrative documents, not a biographical account.
The big Canadian-led attack on Vimy Ridge started on 9th April and fighting intensified as the Germans sought to push back the initial Allied gains. John’s battalion was south of Neuville-Saint-Vaast at a stretch of the frontline called Lille Post.
From the battalion history (link, pages 173-174):
“At Poste de Lille the Battalion remained until April 13th. Technically the time was spent in resting; actually all ranks … were busy cleaning and repairing equipment, salvaging material and preparing for the next tour in the line.
All afternoon on the 13th the battalion ‘stood to’, ready to move, but orders did not arrive until nearly 9pm. As the companies were moving off in obedience to these belated instructions, an unfortunate incident occurred when someone kicked a Mills bomb which lay concealed in the mud. This exploded and wounded nine or ten men, among those being Major KM Perry DSO who was wounded in the neck, Captain GR Johnson, the attached medical officer, who was wounded in the leg, Lieutenant HH Chanter slightly wounded for the second time, the Signalling Sergeant who was struck in the back, and a Pioneer who suffered injuries from which he died in hospital two days later.”
The Pioneer (essentially a soldier-labourer) was John Porritt. He died at 42nd Casualty Clearing Station and is buried at Aubigny.
So what is his link to Bearsden? Strangely, some of his service papers record him as a married man (correct) but give his next-of-kin as Mary Porritt of “2 Hillport Terrace, Bearsden, Glasgow”.
Let’s start with the address. Maybe you are ahead of me here, but I had never heard of Hillport Terrace. I searched online and found one other hit – also on a Canadian emigration form. By searching the Bearsden records for the other person’s name, I found a match at – yes – HillFOOT Terrace, another ‘vanished’ Bearsden address. It was located here:
To orientate you, that’s Hillfoot Station at the bottom of the map, Douglas Park Golf Club on the right, Bournemouth the villa at the centre-top survives as Malaga Tapas. Here is the site of the Terrace today, looking in the opposite direction to the map towards Hillfoot Station:
And the Mary Porritt conundrum? I saw William’s father had died in 1907 and guessed his widow, Mary, might have gone to live with one of her married daughters. Through a family tree on Ancestry.co.uk I found one of them had died in Glasgow and on checking the 1911 Census, yes, there was the widow living with her daughter Nora, her husband Robert (from Preston in Lancashire, a clerk), and their baby on 97 Oxford Drive in Kelvindale. Oxford Drive was subsequently renamed Oban Drive.
And the final step to link Mary to Bearsden? In the 1915 Valuation Roll, Mary Porritt is recorded as living at 16 New Kirk Square (which I tentatively identify as one of the flats above Hillhart Coffee Co on the corner of Drymen Road and New Kirk Road). Mary was still there in the 1920 Valuation Roll, while Nora, Robert and her daughter were at 2 Hillfoot Terrace. The young family then moved to a new house on Maxwell Avenue, Westerton – Robert was now a salesman for a publisher of educational books, Robert Gibson and Sons. (This had been founded around 1880, had premises in Queen Street in Glasgow and eventually became part of the Hodder and Stoughton group, still publishing as Hodder.) I suspect Mary moved in with them.
The next record we have is from 1928 and it is of Robert’s death at home, aged 48, of TB. Nora stayed in Maxwell Avenue for a few years before moving to a flat at Anniesland, 1624 Great Western Road, again Mary moved with her because the old lady died here in 1937. (Note for Porritt family researchers, while the written record of her death has her surname as Porritt, for some reason on Scotland’s People her surname is Milligan.)
Poor Nora. Widowed after 20 years of marriage she had spent 17 of those years with her mother, and then a further nine years looking after an increasingly frail old lady as well as being mother to a daughter. She only outlived her mother by six years, dying of cancer in the Western in 1943.
Back in Canada, Emma gave birth to Edith in August 1918 and married Maurice Chirnside three months later.