Glasgow's Lord Provost has launched a public appeal for help to find out more about First World War hero grandfather.
Councillor Jacqueline McLaren is desperate to find out if any photographs exist of Private Allan Hannah McIlvennie who served with the Cameron Highlanders during the First World War.
He was a career soldier who gained the rank Lance Corporal with the 4th Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). Later known, leading up to the First World War, as the Special Service Battalion of the Cameronians.
Discharged as a time-served soldier, McIlvennie had been working as a miner when he enlisted as a reservist in Greenock. His age was recorded as 33 when he signed up in Glasgow to join the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders on 3 February 1915.
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He sadly lost his life at the notorious ‘bloody’ Battle of the Somme on 23 July 1916. His record states ‘killed in action’.
Like so many others, his body was never found. His service and name are simply recorded on the Thiepval Memorial in France - a somber commemoration of the missing of the Somme and dedicated to more than 72,000 British and South African servicemen who died with no known grave.
The Lord Provost’s Great grandfather’s war journey, following his arrival in France, is unclear. It's known that he disembarked in France on 31 March 1915, after spending a short time at the regiment depot in Inverness.
The usual route for a soldier, signing up with the Cameron Highlanders, would be to be deployed to the 3 rd Battalion for training or to Etaples in France where the British Expeditionary Force was based.
McIlvennie could have been sent to the 1 st Battalion Cameronian involved in the infamous Battle of the Loos on 25 September 1915. It resulted in 364 casualties with only four officers and 200 men surviving.
The men in that brave Battalion later attacked the formidable German defensive system, Hollenzollem Redoubt at Hulloch, on 13 th October 1915, which formed part of the enemy battlefield command system.
The following year, on 1 st July 1916, the Somme began. Pte McIlvennie would have been participating alongside his Battalion comrades, in the attack on Bazentin Ridge on 23 July 1916.
Prior to joining the Queen’s Own Cameronian Highlanders in February 1915, McIlvennie had seen service in the Boar War with the 4 th Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles).
Pte McIlvennie birthplace is given as Barony, Lanarkshire and was recorded as living at 152 Main Street, Maryhill, (now known as Maryhill Road) with parents James and Jane McIlvennie and his sister Mary.
McIlvennie married Jane Hannah. She bore three children: James, Simon and Mary, (the Lord Provost’s granny) who was an infant when her father went to war.
Mary married Alex Docherty, another soldier, who served in World War II. Their child Kathleen, the First Citizen’s mother, married George McLaren.
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