Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Born 3 December 1886 in Great Britain.

The son of a retired army officer who had attained his majority in the 18th Hussars, and during the Great War was engaged in war work and was residing at Rumbling Bridge, Kinross-shire, Scotland.

He was a nephew of the late Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, and was connected with the proprietors of the famous Haig Distilleries.

He served with the Royal Highlanders (Black Watch); had been stationed with that regiment in India, and at the outbreak of the Great War was an Imperial Reservist residing in Western Australia. 

He was well-educated, much travelled, and possessed the happy knack of imparting military knowledge in an attractive and masterly manner.  He was one of a select band of five Imperial Reservists to England or Egypt, and upon disembarkation become available for duty with the Australian Imperial Force.  He was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the AIF on 11 November 1914, but pending embarkation with reservists was not posted to any AIF unit.  He subsequently embarked at Fremantle with reservists and proceeded to Egypt with the 2nd Australian Contingent.

At Alexandria on 1 February 1915 he left the transport on which the reservists were travelling and proceeded to the 1st Australian Divisional Headquarters at Mena House, where he reported for attachment to an AIF unit.  Late in January 1915, when Lieutenant L G Holmes was transferred from the 10th Battalion to the 3rd Brigade Headquarters as permanent Orderly Officer to Colonel E G Sinclair-MacLagan, a vacancy was created in A Company for a Platoon Commander.  It was this appointment which he received, and on 1st February 1915 he was attached to the 10th Battalion and promoted of the rank of Lieutenant.  He first appeared at Mena in a uniform which was neither Imperial nor AIF, and after same had caused some little comment, he selected No. 997 Private R S Brown for his batman.   Private Brown considered that he was a fine type of man and a good soldier.  He accompanied the 10th Battalion to the Dardanelles on the Ionian and landed with his company form the destroyer Foxhound at the historic landing on 25 April 1915.   After the landing he joined up with Lieutenant N M Loutit’s party and reached the Third Ridge, but was ultimately forced to retire to Johnston’s Jolly on the 400 Plateau.

He was subsequently invalided ill from the Peninsula and admitted to the Ras-el-Tim Military Hospital at Alexandria.  At first it was reported that he had been killed, when his OC (Major M F Beevor) forwarded a letter of condolence to his parents; but his mother subsequently replied that the announcement of his death had been officially contradicted.  Major Beevor, after leaving hospital in Manchester and before returning to Gallipoli, visited his parents in Scotland, and spoke highly of the hospitality he received.  He subsequently received the appointment of Assistant Provost-Marshal at Lemnos, but rejoined the Battalion again, at Gebel Habieta, and in February 1916 was transferred to the 50th Battalion, where he remained a very short time before subsequently being transferred to the Cyclist Training Battalion, which he commanded from 1916-17.  He was appointed an honorary Lieutenant in the Australian Military Forces on 25th June 1918.

Extract from “The Fighting 10th”, Adelaide, Webb & Son, 1936 by C.B.L. Lock; kindly supplied courtesy of the 10th Bn AIF Association Committee, April 2015.