The Maxwell Brothers Give Their Lives for Their Country

It has become a bit of an annual tradition during Remembrance Day that I take the time to research ancestors that served in wars.  Today I focused on the Maxwell family.

David Maxwell

John Rennie Maxwell

Among my ancestors who died in WWI were cousins of my grand-mother Isobel Maxwell: John and David Maxwell.  She wrote once that she was very fond of both of them.  They were the sons of David Maxwell Sr., a farmer in Ballindarg, Scotland (and Isobel's uncle).  His first wife, Jane Rennie, died when their sons were just ten and eleven years old.  Thereafter David Sr., was solely responsible for their upbringing (he married his second wife much later).  In their memory, I offer a little of their story as soldiers of the Great War.

Forfarshire reportedly was hard hit by the muster in 1914, with businesses, farms and factories losing many young men in the service of the war.  Local residents were asked for patience as public and private services and industries adapted to the depletion of employees.  By 1918, there was widespread concern that the losses the area had suffered was having an impact on its ability to produce food and goods to support the population.  Local newspapers reported that 75 per cent of the young men were called up from Forfarshire, where in other counties the numbers were closer to 44 per cent.

Among those who heeded the general mobilization in Forfarshire were David Maxwell (1890-1918) and his younger brother John Rennie Maxwell (1891-1915).  They joined up with the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry early in the war – and while their fates were ultimately the same, their paths were quite different. 

John “Jack” Rennie Maxwell

John Rennie Maxwell was known as Jack to his friends.  He and his brother David both helped their father in his potato farming and mercantile businesses.  John’s cousin Isobel was supposed to have resembled him somewhat, and John had previously worked with his uncle, Isobel’s father, at the Commercial Bank.  I wrote about Jack’s Gallipoli experience a few years ago.  Details of the battle which killed Jack are outlined in that blog post.

Jack joined the Fife and Forfar yeomanry with his brother David at the age of 20 prior to the mobilization.  As part of the Royal Scots Regiment, 11^th Battalion, he is remembered for his gallantry and bravery, which won him a Military Medal.  By the time he went into action in the Gallipoli Campaign, he was a Corporal.  He sadly didn’t last long, killed with two others on October 18, not even a month after their landing in Egypt on September 26, 1915.

The Forfar Dispatch November 11, 1915 reports the death of Corporal John Maxwell of Fife and Forfar Yeomanry in the Dardanelles:

This news has caused wide-spread regret not only on account of the sympathy which is felt for the bereaved parents but also on account of the fact that Corporal Maxwell was well-known and a general favourite on account of his bright, friendly and humoursome ways.  He has laid down his life at the call of duty when life is most alluring and he has paid his share of the heavy price by which we are purchasing for the world freedom and peace.

GSM Wilkie

On November 26, 1915, Kerriemuir’s Parish Church held a service to honour the fallen of the parish.  It was a well-attended service which included local elected officials, 80 members of the Boys’ Brigade and members of the Army Service Corps.  Among those memorialized was Corporal John Rennie Maxwell.  Also memorialized at the same service was one George Spence McLean Wilkie (1890-1950).  Some decades later, George’s brother Jeffrey would marry John’s cousin Isobel (my grand-mother).  John was sadly commemorated as the first member of the Forfar Company to die in the war, at the age of 24.  He was David Maxwell Sr.’s younger son. 

John Rennie Maxwell is buried at Green Hill cemetery near Anzac in Turkey where there is a stunning monument to all of the fallen of Gallipoli.

David Maxwell Jr., Captain of the Black Watch

David, like his brother Jack, worked with his father.  Also like his brother Jack, he was called up at the outbreak of the war and joined the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry with the general mobilization.   After a few months of training, in November 1915, the same month his brother died, David obtained a commission in the Black Watch.

David’s Battalion of the Black Watch (the 5^th Angus and Dundee Battalion) spent the war in France after their initial deployment as part of the Scottish Coastal Defences.  David would have taken part in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the Battle of Aubers and the action of Bois Grenier.  In all of these there was fierce fighting with Maxwell’s side trying to breach German lines.  Trench warfare and ongoing fighting had destroyed the countryside, and the trenches themselves were muddy and cold with water running through them.  It was in these circumstances that David demonstrated his bravery.

David’s Battalion formed the 4/5^th Battalion on 15^th March 1916.  David was awarded the Military Cross on two separate occasions for “conspicuous acts of gallantry”, the first time was July 1917.  He served as second lieutenant until he was promoted to Captain in January 1918.  His promotion reads:

Sec. Lieut. David Maxwell, Royal Highlanders, for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.  He took up twenty-four pack mules with barbed wire to an important position under considerable shell fire, and, on an enemy counter-attack developing, collected all available men and consolidated the position in close support to the infantry.  Throughout the day he displayed the greatest courage and devotion to duty.

David Jr.’s understated bravery was evident in his medals and his promotion.  On June 13, 1918, the Forfar Dispatch reported that Captain David Maxwell, Black Watch, son of Mr. Maxwell Ballindarg, was awarded a bar to his Military Cross:

With characteristic modesty he has said nothing about it, but others have not let him hide his light under a bushel, and the news is out.  It is all in the day’s work, and Fortune’s buffets and smiles he takes with equal thanks.  We congratulate the fearless and popular officer on this additional and well deserved honour.

David's Headstone in Senlis

It is small consolation that David Jr. was able to visit his home and receive his well-deserved accolades, for three months later was he shot in the chest.  His died of his injuries two days after he was shot, on August 3, 1918.  David Maxwell, Captain on the Black Watch, is buried in Senlis French National Cemetery in Oise, France.

The Evening Telegraph and Post, Dundee reported on Tuesday August 6, 1918 that Captain Maxwell died of his wounds:

A War Office telegram was received by Mr Maxwell yesterday evening stating that his son had been seriously wounded in the chest.  A later wire communicated the news that he had succumbed to his injuries on Saturday night.

Maxwell Memorial in Padanaram, Scotland

There is no doubt that David Maxwell Sr. was heartbroken at the loss of his second son, and with no surviving children needed an outlet for his grief and a way to properly memorialize his only children.  Padanaram (also known as “Paddy” to the locals) is a small residential village between Forfar and Kirriemuir.  It is near the town of Glamis, birthplace of at least one of David’s sons.  There, visible from the A926, lies the Village Hall, which is a memorial to David and John Rennie Maxwell.  Inside the Memorial Hall hang their photos, and outside there is a plaque which reads:

This hall is erected by

David Maxwell, Ballindarg

in memory of his two sons

Capt. David Maxwell, M.C. bar

Cpl. John Rennie Maxwell

Who Fell in the Great War

1914-1919

While the hall had fallen into some disrepair, it has reportedly recently been renovated.  The large glass window in the front facing the road is flanked by the portraits of the Maxwell boys.

Not too far down the road in Glamis sits another memorial to World War I fallen.  The Maxwell brothers are named on that plaque along with the others from the area who lost their lives.

David Sr. had no other children and no descendants to keep his sons in their memories.  I imagine this is why he built a village memorial hall in Padanaram so their names and sacrifice would be remembered by generations a century after their death in faraway fields of war.  I am honoured to be part of keeping that memory alive this Remembrance Day, November 11, 2018 – 100 years after the conclusion of the War to End All Wars. 

Remembering Ernest John Peden (1874-1947): A Fine Uncle and a Dedicated Soldier

Ernest in a uniform likely from the Boer War

(Updated from the original post October 2017, with additional information about Ernest - November 2020)

My grandmother, Isobel, and my father were somewhat estranged - by geography and emotional connection both.  In her later years, my father would visit and managed to get some scrawled notes from her on her family background.  She spoke fondly of her uncles, none of whom we knew or had met.  One in particular I wanted to research, likely due to the Canadian connection.  She wrote:  “Ernest went ranching and lumber-jacking in Canada (Alberta?), enlisted in 1914 and came over to France with the Canadian Contingent.  Survived most of the 4 years but was wounded several times and then shot through the head.  A quiet, good, thoughtful, kind man – well-named Ernest.”

Isobel's hand-written note regarding her Uncle Ernest Peden

Thus began a many years long effort of learning what happened to Ernest.  I learned first a lot about his family background, and difficult childhood.  I was able to track down some military records of his time with the Hussars in South Africa (the photo of him in uniform is from that era).  I lost track of him for a while, then found him again very near to where I live on Vancouver Island in Canada.  He must have joined some cousins here, as there are Pedens who settled in and around Victoria (but I haven't been able to conclusively link them yet).  I was excited when his records for the Canadian Expeditionary Force were posted on Ancestry, and I learned so much about him then.  More records started trickling in until I learned that he had in fact survived the war and landed back in Canada.  I could find nothing of his life after his release from the war for about a year.  Then, records surfaced in New Zealand - where he had clearly gone to visit his father.  There was no question that Ernest spent time there, but it was years before I found his death place - back in Scotland.  This year Remembrance Day I decided to fully update this blog in memory of Ernest.  

The eldest Peden brother, born to Alexander Peden and his then wife MaryAnne Emily Holtum, was true to his name – earnest in demeanour and serious by nature.  His childhood was marred by his father, who was a drunk who first mistreated and then institutionalized his wife, took up with a nurse, then abandoned the whole family to move to New Zealand in 1896 (Ernest would have been 22).  It can’t have been an easy childhood near the turn of the century England.  They were not a wealthy family, and hoped, apparently, to make their fortune in the brewing industry when Ernest was a young boy. It was no wonder that Ernest seemed to fare best as a soldier.

Boer War

Ernest was 5 foot 8 inches, of dark complexion, with black hair and grey eyes.  He joined up with the British side in the Second Anglo- Boer  War (1899-1902) and fought for the 18^th Hussars.  He was severely wounded near Boschpoort on the 30^th of June 1901, after surviving the battle for Talana Hill eighteen months prior (the participation in which garnered him a medal).  It would appear that Ernest joined the war effort early, when he was about 25, and stayed for the duration.  The one thing that I have from Ernest is his Talana Hill medal.

Ernest’s return from the Boer war was short lived.  In 1903 he left Liverpool for Halifax, eventually making his way, via the United States, to the west coast of Canada.  He worked a short way from where I now live (a small world indeed) – in Comox on Vancouver Island.  After his family dysfunction and the madness of the war in Africa, the peace of the tall trees on the rugged Canadian west coast must have provided some solace.  It seems that other Peden relatives were living in Victoria, but I have been unable to confirm who (other than a cousin James that Ernest mentioned in his travel documents).  

Ernest’s quiet Canadian life was interrupted when war broke out in Europe.  The call for help from his English homeland must have been strong. 

On September 21, 1914, Ernest joined the war effort, this time for the Canadian side, just over a month after Canada, as a result of the UK declaring war, joined the fray.  He was assigned to the 8^th Canadian Battalion, 90^th Winnipeg Rifles in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).  Ernest joined as a private and stayed a private throughout the length of the war. He was relatively older when he did join up (40 years of age), although his records show that while he spent some time as a clerk, he spent most of the war in the trenches. 

Class A War Service Badge

Ernest’s record shows that he received the Class A War Service Badge, denoting his service at the front in France and Flanders.  His battalion fought, among other places, at Ypres, Vimy Ridge, the Somme and Passchendaele.  He wore the Good Conduct badge for his four years in the CEF: a chevron worn on the left sleeve of the dress uniform.

His records also contained hints about his experience in the First World War.  He was occasionally commended, sometimes punished for disobedience, worked as clerk (presumably to take a break from the front) and sent back to join his unit. He suffered with the front line soldiers, and was hospitalized for illness, dysentery, and trench fever several times over the course of the war.  He had had five months in hospital due to shell shock, and suffered typhoid fever.  He had lasting effects of these injuries and illnesses: he suffered from prostate problems and hemorrhoids, and undoubtedly other unseen mental illness compounded by his complex and traumatic childhood and youth. While his record may be normal for a private in WWI, it is a sobering thing to read in the comfort of your living room, not too many kilometres from his peaceful existence as a forestry worker on Vancouver Island. 

Ernest identified his oldest sister, Jessie Lloyd Stevenson (née Peden) as his next of kin. Jessie and Ernest were the oldest of the nine Peden children.  Ernest had left for the Boer war before his sister Jessie had married and left home in 1907, but as the eldest, and given his parents’ troubles, it is no wonder she was the one he most identified with. His mother, Mary Anne Emily Peden, née Holtum, had long since left her husband Alexander and was living on her own means.  Ernest, ever the conscientious eldest son, sent her money.

  

Ernest John Peden's discharge from the CEF was on May 7, 1919.  His travel documentation from his return to Canada after the war shows that in May 1919, Ernest sailed with other soldiers on the Empress of Britain, arriving in Quebec City with the intent of travelling to Vancouver.  He was 44 years old and had spent most of his life at war.  He had been injured multiple times, received medals, and had spent only a brief time in Canada between wars.  The first hint of what happened to him after his discharge is contained in his Canadian military records, which contain a card which says c/o Returned Soldiers Club, Albert Street, Auckland, New Zealand.  

It is through New Zealand military records that we can track some of what happened to Ernest next.

In September 1918, J.T.M. Hornsby, then Member of Parliament in New Zealand, writes to the Minister of Defence.  He had just been to the local library where he was waited upon by the librarian, Alexander Peden (an extraordinary change in careers for Alexander the brewer to have late in his life).  Hornsby was asking the Defence Department to help Alexander seek a furlough for his son Ernest from the Canadian military to New Zealand.  I gather that Mr. Hornsby and Alexander had had a long conversation as the letter included reference to his two other sons, one serving as second officer on a transport, and George, his third son, having been killed in Mesopotamia.  Mr. Hornsby concludes his letter as follows:  "The old folks (Scots people) would be glad if you could help them to have furlough granted to New Zealand of the eldest son."  The return letter from the Minister of Defence directs Mr. Hornsby to have Alexander write to the Canadian government.

Ernest's father Alexander Peden died in Carterton, New Zealand in October 1919.  Since Ernest was discharged in May, if we assume he made his way directly to see his father, Alexander would have died shortly after Ernest's arrival.  It is also possible that Ernest went to New Zealand upon learning of his father's death.  Regardless, Ernest had made his way to New Zealand after the war.  In July 1920, Ernest was admitted to Dannevirke Military Hospital in New Zealand, and released in August.

In 1921 Ernest wrote a letter to New Zealand's Defence Department from the Returned Soldier's Club in Auckland.  He was inquiring about an advertisement he had seen in the New Zealand Herald referring to War Medals, specifically the General Service Medal and Victory Medal.  He had received his 1914-15 Star, but not the other medals from the Canadian Government and was wondering how he could receive them.  He was hoping the New Zealand Government could contact their counterparts in Canada on his behalf.  The letter has a note on it from the administration in receipt of it suggesting he make his own inquiries of the Canadian Government.  This letter is the first time I have found something that belonged to Ernest, that included his handwriting and signature.  It was a moving find after years of trying to uncover what happened to him.  We don't know what he was doing in New Zealand after the death of his father.  He was 47 years old, had been through two ugly wars, severely injured and a half a world away from the rest of his family.

What we do know is that Ernest was in New Zealand until 1921 at least.  I spent many more months occasionally returning to my search for Ernest to find what had happened to him.

Perusing the newspapers on FindMyPast for obituaries for the Peden clan, I stumbled upon Ernest's  obituary.  He died November 27 1947 at Maryfield Hospital in Dundee, Scotland.

In 1947 Isobel Maxwell, my grand-mother and Ernest's niece, was living in Scotland.  When I discovered that Ernest had died in Dundee, and his niece, who adored him, never knew he survived the war and lived not too distant from her, I was very sad.  The Peden family was broken by alcoholism, domestic violence and dysfunction.  I know that my grand-mother (Ernest's niece) did not get along well with her mother, and that the family dispersed over time.  Someone went to the trouble of posting his obituary, presumably a family member who knew of his military service. 

In a longer reminiscence, my grand-mother, Ernest’s niece, Isobel Maxwell, described him – I think it is an excellent way to end this Remembrance Day dedication to Ernest John Peden:

Uncle Ernest, the eldest brother, was a still, quiet man with a lean sensitive face and patient thoughtful eyes.  I never could imagine him as a cowpuncher or a lumberjack, yet he had been both in Alberta and British Columbia Canada.  I used to picture him alone by the side of a swiftly flowing river deep in the Canadian woods.  He had a … canoe beside him on the bank, and perhaps a campfire waiting to discourage blackfly and mosquitoes…

I don’t remember that he did actually smoke but I should like him to have had a pipe and maybe a dog.  His thoughts would be contented thoughts but I do not think they would be gay.

My mother said to me once in rather serious tones, “Ernest is good, you know.”

I only saw him in uniform, a strangely gentle soul to be a good soldier which it seems he was.  He came over with the 1^st Canadian Contingent.  Everything unpleasant happened to him, from trench feet to a bad head wound.  He did not complain.  I hope that as a lad he had some real fun and happiness because I do not think his latter years brought him much.  He deserved better.

One of my letters to him began “Dear Uncle Earnest.”  My mother smiled but would not let me re-write it.