Photo credit to Ross and Cromarty Heritage (link)
James Andrew Ross was born on 9th July 1882 at the Schoolhouse in Wemyss, Fife. This is not as specific as it could be, there being East Wemyss, West Wemyss and Coaltown of Wemyss, but checking the 1881 Census somebody has helpfully written across the page listing James’s parents and neighbouring properties: “All in the Village of East Wemyss”.
This 1893 map shows the school and a house nearby – I am not certain it was the School House, however:
If this is correct, then the current school must have been built just to the east.
James’s father, Donald was the school master here. He had married Mary Ness just under 15 years earlier in Lauder. James had four brothers and sisters, Isabella (1869), John (1872), Elizabeth (Bessie, 1877) and William (1879). After James there was also Mary and Helen (Nellie).
We can track the family to the 1901 Census where 18-year old James and also his younger sister, Mary, were pupil teachers in their father’s school – as the name suggests this was the first experience on the path to a career in teaching.
James trained at Moray House in Edinburgh, then Edinburgh University where he obtained an MA. He had teaching jobs in Dumbarton, Maybole and Anstruther. He also lived in Dingwall for a few months but it is not clear when.
In November 1909 he was appointed as Second Master at New Kilpatrick Grade School at Bearsden Cross where he taught English and Science, only leaving when he enlisted in the army when World War One was declared just under five years later.
This was a turbulent time at the school. First, the headmaster who had been in place when James joined resigned soon after. Second, the old school building was to be demolished and replaced with the building we see today.
If you have not seen this photo before, it is taken from Thorn Road at Bearsden Cross, looking across Drymen Road into Roman Road, dated 1899. North Church would be just to the photographer’s left. The New Kirk Buildings were to replace the tree (and cart) within a few years (but the buildings behand the tree are still there, the row that ends with Bulbir’s/the Post Office). To the right of Roman Road is the school master’s house and the taller building behind that is the school-house. The school we see today was built in the same place.
John emerged from this with a high reputation as a teacher. In his spare time he was also interested in freemasonry and was RWM at Ellangowan, No. 716 in Milngavie.
In 1912, John returned home to Fife at the start of the summer holiday to marry Marjory Williamson on 31st July. He was 30 and she was 28. They were married at her family home, 179 Balsusney Road, Kirkcaldy:
Marjorie has no occupation on the marriage record; her father’s occupation was “Secretary” which probably meant “Company Secretary” ie a senior manager.
James and Marjorie returned to Bearsden where they lived in a flat at 22 New Kirk Buildings. I strongly suspect this is now on the west side of New Kirk Road.
On 25th January 1915, Marjorie gave birth to a daughter, Marjory, also at 22 New Kirk. By this time, James was a private in the 3rd Reserve Battalion of the 9th Battalion, Highland Light Infantry (the Glasgow Highlanders).
We cannot reproduce today James’s decision to voluntarily enlist in September 1914, aged 34 and with a pregnant wife, as well as leaving his job as a teacher with very little notice. It seems odd, but he must have felt a duty or compulsion we cannot fully understand.
In March 1915 he was transferred to 4th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, as a second lieutenant. The battalion would still have been in training at this time, but James was promoted to Lieutenant in November of that year. During training in Ripon, James was such a good shot with a rifle he was asked to remain as an instructor but refused as he wanted to serve at the front.
Here is a photo of James while a Second Lieutenant, courtesy of Mike Frankish (via The Great War Forum website):
On 24th July 1916, the battalion was serving in the Somme sector in France. The Allied offensive had begun on 1st July, said to be the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, but that was just the start and on successive days further local attacks were launched with the Germans slowly being pushed back.
James’s battalion were part of another attempt to capture High Wood – this had already been the scene of the deaths of three soldiers from Bearsden featuring in profiles on this site (click name to follow link): John Duvoisin, George Moir, and Arthur Russell.
The battalion war diary says they moved into the frontline on 24th July 1916 “Weather warm and water scarce.” Their first task was to deepen existing trenches and to dig new ones. There was a plan to send a party to aid the German trenches in the late evening, but an artillery bombardment meant it was postponed.
On the 25th July, three new shallow trenches were dug out into ‘no man’s land’ in between the two front lines. Then:
“At 9.20pm after a preliminary bombardment, Lt Ross led a [hard-to-read word] storming party against the N.E. [north-east] corner of the wood. The attack failed completely, the trench was found heavily manned and apparently untouched by our artillery fire. The party was greeted with a shower of grenades and a cross fire of M.G. [i.e. fired on by machine guns from both sides]. Lt Ross was killed on the parapet. [The parapet is the small mound of earth or sandbag built by the defenders in front of their trench as added protection. James could have been stepping on it to cross or possibly standing on it to try to get a better view.]
Owing to the number of shell holes, broken trees and smashed in dug-outs a large number of the raiding party failed to get up [I think this means they were separated from the main attack]. The casualties among the 50 men who took part were very high. Two men failed to be accounted for although the ground was thoroughly searched.”
The final sentence is possibly a little misleading if it read as only two men were lost. No figure is given for casualties on the raid but over five days, including the 25th, the battalion recorded 18 dead, 166 wounded and 2 missing. (The figure for the number of dead is corroborated exactly by the CWGC records.)
While this suggests James was killed on the 25th, he is officially recorded as dying on the 26th. Reading between the lines of the battalion war diary I suspect his body was brought back to the British lines and he was buried; however, the ground was fought over again and the location of some graves was lost, including James’s (this is my suspicion, I have no proof). He is recorded on the Thiepval Monument which records those who died in the area but have no known grave.
The colonel of the battalion wrote to James’s widow, Marjorie, to let her know her husband had died describing what he described as “a forlorn hope”. I wonder what this phrase meant to her as she read it? My understanding is that it was a name applied to the storming party when a besieged town or fortress had had its walls breached by artillery fire and the surrounding forces were about to storm it. The ‘forlorn hope’ was a group of volunteers, so-called because they went in first and would bear the brunt of all gunfire and any traps (such as concealed explosive charges) that the defenders had prepared for them.
But that seems very different to James’s 50 men on an evening/night-time raid on German trenches to test their reactions, grab prisoners & documents, possibly only to be in the enemy lines for a few minutes destroying anything they found, etc. Maybe James’s colonel was thinking that in retrospect it had the same casualty rate as a (historical) ‘forlorn hope’. For whatever reason, the phrase is used on the memorial to the family in MacDuff Cemetery, East Wemyss.
In the 1921 Census, James widow and daughter were living at 179 Balsusney Road, Kirkcaldy, with Marjorie’s widowed mother (who turns out to be her step-mother). Neither of the adult women has an occupation recorded.
We have one final glimpse of James’s daughter, Marjorie (christened Marjory) in 1947 (Oban Times, 17th May):
Thomas Bowhill Gibson was an architect of some renown and is remembered today on specialist websites. He was 52 at the time of his engagement to Marjorie and it seems he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. They were married on 3rd September 1947 at the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh. (The Caledonian was for Princes Street Station, closed in the 1960s; it still stands and thrives as a Hilton, on the western end of Princes Street).
Thomas died of TB two years later. Marjorie died in Uphall in 1979, having reverted to the surname Ross.
As mentioned in passing in the article, Marjorie, James’s wife died on 16th April 1945 aged 62, of a cerebral haemorrhage (bleed on the brain).