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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Private William David Forbes, Nigerian Regiment


DoubleD

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At almost 63 years of age this is my first attempt to try and find information using any kind of forum. Please forgive me if I am not using it correctly, but here goes.

I am carrying out research to produce a Roll of Honour for the 165 staff and former pupils who are commemorated on the Perth Academy War Memorial. I must begin by saying that I am very grateful for the tremendous amount of work which had already been carried out by the Scottish War Memorials Project. Without that information I probably would have given up before I'd even started.

Private William David Forbes is one of the 165, and one of only two people for whom I can find no record of their final resting place.

I do know that he was born in Perth, lived at 60 Rose Crescent and was an apprentice engineer. He is listed as sailing from Liverpool to Lagos in 1913 (SS Burutu) and again in 1915 (SS Elmina), to work as an engineer on the Nigerian Railways.

He enlisted in the Nigerian Regiment sometime after 1915 and died on the 10th November 1918.

I have checked every CWGC cemetery and memorial in Nigeria and he is not listed on any of them. The only mention in the local library in Perth is an obituary for his father in February 1919, which does not mention his son at all.

I also know, from the National Records of Scotland, that he left a will, dated 12th December 1913 (just before he left for Nigeria the first time) to two sisters: Annie Elizabeth Forbes and Janie Cardy Shaw Forbes or Stewart, 3 Western Avenue, Perth.

That is all the information I have been able to find using ancestry, service records and Perth library archives.

Perhaps someone out there has some information on regimental records for the Nigerian Regiment which might mention William Forbes.

Here's hoping!

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This may be a red herring, but in a book called "Landscape, Environment and Technology in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa", there appears to be a W.D. Forbes listed on a table of European Railroad Workers who Died as a Result of the Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919

Mr. W. D. Forbes Workshop Artisan 1918 at Enugu

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Major-General, many thanks. The railway connection does make sense. I am at the AK Bell Library in Perth tomorrow, I'll see if they can get a copy of the book, or any related publications.

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