John Campbell-drowned in the Liffey three days before discharge

[david murdoch]

Just doing some looking around for him - he does not appear to be on the Scottish National War Memorial roll either. Looking on the Irish records does not turn up a (civil) death certificate so presumably taken care of by the army though have seen death certificates for soldiers who died (in service) there. I have a case of a Soldier died in Scotland a matter of days after discharge, but he has a civil death certificate. There is no soldier's will for him on Scotlands People or a civil will. He should have a death record in the Scottish records - ie a service return, but there a dozen service returns (1918) for John Campbell in the right age group or no age stated, and none in 1919.

[ss002d6252]

11 hours ago, George Rayner said:

Also as he did not qualify for War Gratuity because of length of service does this mean no CWGC burial/memorial?

It does not specifically mean so.

 

Campbell enlisted 5 months and 25 days before he died. For war gratuity purposes, because he did not serve overseas, he had a minimum 6 month qualifying period for the gratuity and so did not hit this threshold.

 

For CWGC purposes he could still meet their requirements without hitting the war gratuity criteria.

 

Craig

[Jervis]

52 minutes ago, david murdoch said:

Looking on the Irish records does not turn up a (civil) death certificate so presumably taken care of by the army though have seen death certificates for soldiers who died (in service) there.
 

The OP has an image of his civil death certificate. 

[david murdoch]

3 hours ago, Jervis said:

The OP has an image of his civil death certificate. 

Woops missed that! I was looking at the pension card in that post. I'm wondering if his service return will note "suicide" or "drowned" This of course if he has a service return - if not that would imply he was already considered discharged. It's all a bit strange for sure. The circumstances tend to hint at him diving over to escape being hit by the vehicle. If he'd been in a frame of mind to commit suicide, I'd say he would have gone off on his own or at night if he was going to jump off a bridge to end it all. It's been established he was buried in Paisley which obviously means the body was repatriated from Ireland to Scotland - this possibly at family's request, as normally (and going by CWGC number) British soldiers who died there were buried there.  I have a couple of CWGC headstones in my hometown cemetery. One of these is a drowning in a river - pretty sure it was suicide  - a soldier who could not face going back to he front, and another who died a year after being discharged. He'd gone back to work as a miner but his health was ruined and he did not last more than a year. In his case he still got a CWGC headstone as his death was as a consequence of his service.

[T, Fazzini]

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/243325-cwgc-non-commemorations/

[George Rayner]

Thank you all for your continued interest and additional tidbits of information adding to the research. It would be good to find his service record/attestation but I fear those are not to be discovered. You never know...

 

George

[corisande]

It's been established he was buried in Paisley which obviously means the body was repatriated from Ireland to Scotland - this possibly at family's request, as normally (and going by CWGC number) British soldiers who died there were buried there.

 

Ireland was part of the UK, and as such a Paisley soldier who died in Dublin or Limerick (or indeed in say Manchester or Aldershot or Aberdeen) was treated for burial purposes as a home death. The Army paid the costs of taking the body to home town for burial.

 

The family did not of course have to have the body they could chose to have him buried in Ireland (or Aberdeen ...)

 

Over 800 British Soldiers died while serving in Ireland 1919/1921 (only 180 of these were KIA). Most of these were non-Irish, as Irish regiments were excluded from garrison duties in Ireland after the 1916 rising. The vast majority were taken back to Great Britain (that is England, Scotland or Wales) for burial

 

A British passport today is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" , back in 1921 it was for "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" . Who knows what it will be in a few years

[George Rayner]

Thanks for that insight Corisande.

 

Who knows what the future is in the new reality!

 

George

[T, Fazzini]

Campbell case has already been submiteed end of 2018 with application expected shortly...according to IFC ..lets hope it positive!

Edited 30 August , 2020 by T, Fazzini