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John Marshall

John Marshall was born in Monifieth, Forfarshire, near Dundee, in 1875 or 1876, son of Archibald and Margaret Marshall. The family lived in and around Dundee during his youth. He had at least four siblings, one of whom may have died young. In 1881 his father was a coal retailer, but by 1891 and from them on he was a coachman, as was his oldest son. The daughter of the family was a draper’s assistant at 13, and in 1891 John was listed as a 15-year-old law clerk. Ten years later, 25-year-old John Marshall was living in Perth, as a “coachman domestic” according to the census, as a “cabman” according to city directories a few years later.

On December 6, 1901 he married Catherine Nicol Birss, who was born in 1874 or 1875 in the tiny hamlet of Birse, which is just off the road from Aberdeen past Balmoral and about 5 km. from the eastern boundary of the Cairngorms National Park. As their name would suggest, the Birss family had lived for generations in this idyllic, remote village set in rolling hills beside a small creek called the Burn of Birse which empties into the fast-flowing River Dee. Her father was a shoemaker and also a crofter – one of many in the area – with ten arable acres. In 1881 he and his wife had nine children; the youngest was ten months old and the eldest, a sixteen-year-old girl, was already working as a “general servant.” In the 1890s Catherine, one of the middle children, left the highlands for Perth, to find work.

John and Catherine lived in Perth and had a daughter Margaret in 1905. Five years later they immigrated to Canada, arriving on June 27, 1910 in Quebec on board the passenger ship Dominion out of Liverpool. The passenger list recorded that John Marshall intended to work as a chauffeur in Ottawa. Why he was destined for Ottawa is not clear; we have not been able to trace any family connections. Though he may have started out in Ottawa (and an obituary in 1918 said he had lived in the capital for many years), the 1911 census shows him and his family in Whitby, Ontario, where he was employed as a chauffeur earning $360 a year, with $50 in life insurance. A second child, John Roy, was born in 1913. The first definite record of him in Ottawa is his appearance in New Edinburgh about 1913, again working as a chauffeur. He was living on Vaughan Street, which was then just opening up. The Marshalls joined MacKay Presbyterian by certificate on 26 June 1914.

Marshall was consistently described in directories in Ottawa as a chauffeur, but his death notice in 1918 says he was “well known as an automobile engineer.” This is not hyperbole. Being a “coachman” as he, his father, and brother had been in the late nineteenth century, meant taking responsibility for the care and maintenance of horses and carriages, perhaps even buying them and supervising others. With the coming of the automobile, many coachmen made the transition to being chauffeurs. By 1905 in Perth John Marshall was being listed in city directories as a “cabman.” His father Archibald was described in Dundee directories from 1903 on as a “lorryman.” Being a chauffeur in the first decade of the twentieth century meant far more than driving a car (or truck). There were many varieties of cars on the road, some quite experimental. They were temperamental and unreliable and there were few service stations or nearby garages. Chauffeurs needed to have the mechanical skill to manage and maintain automobiles to ensure reliable service to their employers. “The demand for competent chauffeurs continues unabated,” ran an article in

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the Ottawa Journal in 1916. “It is not exactly reasonable, from the standpoint of the chauffeur,” the article continued, “ for an owner to expect to get an experienced driver and mechanic, the latter point being the more important, for anything less than $30 a week.” We do not know what kind of work Marshall did or for whom. There were few taxi companies in Ottawa and he likely did not own his own car. He may have been employed by families in Rockcliffe, at Government House, or among senior ministers and civil servants. The fact that an obituary for Marshall appeared in an Ottawa newspaper when he had been gone from the city for over two years suggests that he had enough contacts through his work to be “well known.”

In the fall of 1915 Marshall enlisted, in Ottawa, in the British Army Service Corps. Why the Imperial and not the Canadian army? The British were the most mechanized of the armies on the Western Front and according to the recent research of Richard Holt they were in desperate need of “skilled driver-mechanics, wheelers, fitters, electricians, or blacksmiths” for the Mechanical Transport Section of the Brtish Army Service Corps. As they had done with the Royal Flying Corps, the Canadian government gave the BASC permission to recruit in Canada. An elaborate system was set up to test trade proficiency, though further tests in England weeded out many of these men; and although the British had hoped for 2740 men, only 1100 enlisted. As an experienced chauffeur, Marshall would have been exactly what they were looking for. His British service number M2/152731 indicates that he was in the Mechanical Transport Company and had not previously served in the British forces. Though he never served in the CEF, Marshall is listed in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial because he was considered a Canadian and had attested in Ottawa.

Marshall attended communion at MacKay for his first and only time in the fall of 1914 before enlisting. His wife Catherine, having attended communion at MacKay in October 1915, travelled Second Class to Glasgow with her children in January 1916, on the Cameronian out of New York, giving as their destination 28 Balfour Street, Dundee. This is the address of John’s father Archibald (it is now part of the University of Dundee). One may assume that her intention, like that of Mary Mayo, was to spend the war with family in Scotland while John was away. After a period of training in Britain, Marshall was sent to Egypt, probably in early 1916.

Egypt was of vital strategic importance because of the Suez Canal which was a lifeline between Britain and India. It was what Lord Milner called a “veiled protectorate” – nominally part of the Ottoman Empire and ruled by a khedive, but, though care was taken to maintain the fiction of a partnership, to all intents and purposes under the control of British officials who had over the previous quarter century taken over its bankrupt and incompetent administration. Egyptian nationalists increasingly resented this and when the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in 1914, they encouraged the pro-Ottoman khedive to declare his renewed loyalty to Turkey. The British quickly deposed him and replaced him with his more pliant nephew, who declared Egypt nominally independent but in fact under British protection. The British appointed a high commissioner and effectively put the country under military rule. Two divisions of Indian troops were brought in to take positions along the Canal, and supply lines to naval bases at either end of the canal and to rear bases in Alexandria and Cairo were established and strengthened.

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Egypt and the Middle East were supposed to be a side-show and minimal resources were to be devoted to this theatre of war. Indeed, it was anticipated that the Middle East campaign would be conducted by Indian troops under the direction of the Government of India. But an Indian force attacking Mesopotamia to secure the oil fields of the Persian Gulf suffered a devastating defeat in 1915. Then an attempt to knock Turkey out of the war by landing troops on the Gallipoli peninsula at the mouth of the Dardanelles – the gateway to Istanbul and the Black Sea – had also proved a catastrophic failure and by the end of 1915 the British and Australian survivors of the operation had been evacuated to Egypt. Another force had been landed at Salonika in Greece to open a Balkan front and had quickly bogged down in stalemate. Thus by early 1916 Egypt had become an important rear base for three theatres of war as well as a staging area for ANZAC and Indian troops headed for the Western Front. It was also the front line for two other campaigns: one against allies of the Turks in the Libyan Desert, and another in defence of the Suez Canal and Sinai. By the end of the year there were over 100,000 troops in Egypt.

The role of the British Army Service Corps in supplying and transporting food, equipment, and ammunition, using horsed, motor, water, and rail transport took on a vital importance. Supply and repair bases were established at Cairo and Alexandria, and later forward bases were established in the Sinai, all supported by the BASC Mechanical Transport division. The MT branch was organized into dozens of companies involving thousands of men. Some operated supply depots and mechanical facilities at the main bases. A myriad of field units working on their own or ,attached to infantry, artillery, or HQs in forward operations, provided ambulance, courier and messenger services, convoyed supplies to forward bases or ammunition to artillery – in short, any function involving motor transport. Thus in early 1916 John Marshall found himself on a crowded troopship working its way carefully around the coast of France and through the Mediterranean, always alert to the threat of German submarines.

We do not have Marshall’s service record which was likely destroyed in a bombing raid in World War II. We do not even know what MT Company he was attached to. We therefore can only surmise what role he may have played. At first, he was probably engaged in the effort to establish an effective motor transport network, with depots and supply lines, and to ensure quality maintenance of vehicles and equipment. If he spent time in Cairo or Alexandria he might have occasionally visited these exotic settings but he was more likely to have been camped in the desert on the outskirts – and he would have found the “natives” unfriendly and would have been cautioned to avoid fraternization. Given his background and the important role played in Egypt by all kinds of automobiles and light trucks, it is a safe bet that he was driving and/or servicing them. Given what happened to him, it is probable that he was involved in one of the two theatres of active operations in Egypt in 1916 and 1917.

To the west, the fight was against Senussi rebels in Cyrenica (now Libya) who had resisted the Italian conquest of Libya from the Ottoman Empire in 1911 were induced and supplied by the Ottomans and Germans to attack Egypt. After penetrating some distance into Egypt they were pushed out by March 1916, though the revolt flared up again in 1917 and required the British to maintain a force in the western desert of Egypt. This Western campaign was a testing ground for the use of motor transport in desert warfare. It turned out that Ford cars and vans were the most suited and dependable for this terrain, both to

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move patrols and to supply forward bases, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Marshall might have been involved.

To the east, the British failures in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli had encouraged the Turks to turn their attention to the Suez Canal. In 1915 they attacked across the Sinai Desert, reached the Canal, but were repulsed with heavy losses. They then built a railway to Beersheba in Palestine as a supply base for operations in Sinai. The British came to the conclusion that, even with limited resources, the best way to ensure the security of the Canal was to remove this threat by attacking its source.

Thus, beginning in March 1916, the British, with Territorial, ANZAC, and Indian troops, began moving methodically into the Sinai Peninsula using the ancient caravan route along the coast. There were a few places along the route with fresh water, but to sustain this advance it would be necessary to tap fresh water supplies from the Egyptian side of the Canal and build a pipeline and railway to follow the line of advance. This was a major engineering task but if successful it would mean that once taken the Sinai could be held. In order to forestall this advance, in August 1916 the Ottomans crossed the Sinai to attack the British at Romani in August 1916, where they were dealt a major defeat by the British and ANZAC forces. This removed the immediate threat to the Canal, but the British objective now became to capture Gaza and the Ottoman base at Beersheba. In December 1916 the British captured the Ottoman base of El Arish and the following month the border town of Rafah. By March 1917 a large British force was encamped before Gaza. By this time, under pressure from the new British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, to knock Turkey out of the war, and with revolution in Russia lessening the threat to the Turks from the north, the British command had decided to carry the war into Palestine. This meant breaking the stalemate between British and Turkish forces at Gaza and Beersheba. It also meant forming an alliance with Arab tribes under Prince Faisal who were revolting against Turkish rule in the Hejaz. Finally it meant enlisting the support of Jews, who were promised a homeland in Palestine by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and were recruited into the Jewish Legion.

It would be difficult to imagine worse conditions for a military campaign, and for the building of a railway and pipeline, than the Sinai. Daytime temperatures go as high as fifty degrees, so no work was possible after 10 a.m. or before 4 p.m., when it became so hot that,

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in the words of one soldier, “It was almost too hot to breathe and we used to strip naked and lay in the tent, trying to keep cool, but even then we simply poured out sweat and our skin blistered, yes it was hot, enough for fowls to lay hard boiled eggs all day long.” At night the desert could become bitterly cold and the men huddled in light blankets, all the while pestered by insects and lice and threatened by snakes and scorpions. There was little shade, except when frequent sandstorms blotted out the sun for days. Supplies, food, ammunition, and above all, water – 1.2 million gallons were required each day – had to be kept flowing to the front over longer and longer supply lines. Histories of the campaign contain numerous stories of men found unconscious after a day in the open, sometimes recovering, often dead or dying; of water being guarded by men with guns and doled out by the pint after a long day; of men so parched that their tongues swelled and they became delirious or delusional.

The Sinai and Libyan campaigns were learning environments for how to use motorized transport in desert warfare – lessons that were applied to the full in the Second World War. In the deep sand of the Sinai desert, heavy lorries, armoured cars, tanks, and even tracked vehicles were not an option. This is why a railway was being slowly and laboriously built across the desert, but the work, and the men doing it, had to be supplied. The predominant method of transport in the early stages was by camel, a costly and inefficient method which required thousands of animals and the conscription of thousands of Egyptian drivers, who, in spite of official praise for their achievements, were treated cruelly and suffered terribly. A letter written by an officer in the British Camel Transport Corps described the effects of a march in Sinai in July 1916: “nearly every Englishman and scores of natives got sunstrike and many died, both men and camels. … It was a pitiful sight, the poor devils fainting with thirst, heat, and weariness, falling out or plodding on blindly.”

But camels could not meet the whole need of an advancing army and motor transport, in spite of the difficult desert conditions, had to play a role. “Only two types of mechanical transport were possible in the desert”, writes the historian of the transport services in this theatre: “Holt trucks and Ford vans.” They could operate on sand roads to some extent, but as the railway advanced, new roads were laid down using wire mesh to hold the sand in place and allow light vehicles to operate as long as they carefully disciplined their speed. By early 1917 light cars and armoured cars were part of the order or battle, and as the campaign wore on an increasing number of field guns and longer supply lines increased the need for trucks to transport essential supplies and ammunition. Operating conditions – sand in the carburetors, radiators, fans, and lubricant, breakdown of axles, wheel bearing and steering gears, overheating, wear and tear on engines and transmissions – required constant attention to maintenance and the ability to make repairs on the fly. Gaining experience by trial and error involved risks to drivers. If a car got lost or broke down

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in the desert, where there were no landmarks, mirages misled men, and where water or shade could not be found, the driver was doomed.

In July 1917, General Edmund Allenby took over command, reinforced and reorganised the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and renewed the offensive. In October 1917 the British captured Beersheba – a battle that like some others in this campaign was a race against time as to whether the attacking forces, which included cavalry, could capture wells and water supplies before succumbing to thirst. By Christmas Allenby had taken Jerusalem and held it against sharp counter-attacks. In February, 1918 his army marched down the Jordan Valley in parched terrain that was all but impassable to wheeled vehicles, and entered Jericho on February 21. With Baghdad and Mecca captured, and with the Arabs in revolt, the Ottomans had their backs to the wall in spite of the collapse of Russia. The battle of Megiddo in September 1918 and the British advance on Aleppo sealed the doom of the Ottoman Empire.

As we have said, we do not know what role Marshall played in all this. What we do know is that at some point he suffered a sunstroke, was evacuated to Scotland, and died in March 1918 at age 42. Medical evacuation from Egypt to Britain was not routine as it was on the western front; the trip was longer and more dangerous and Egypt had full medical facilities. A sunstroke severe enough to justify evacuation, but not enough to kill the patient outright, would have been improbable in Cairo or Alexandria. Given that Marshall was by now an experienced desert hand, it would likely have been the result of a military operation, emergency, or accident, rather than mere carelessness. It is thus most probable that it occurred during the Sinai campaign in the fall of 1917.

Sunstroke, now referred to as heatstroke, occurs when the body’s heat-regulating system fails due to prolonged exposure to the sun or intense heat. The body’s temperature rises, the blood and circulatory system cannot dissipate the heat, and sweating not only does not cool but deprives the body of essential minerals – indeed, the patient actually stops sweating and his internal temperature rises. The first symptoms are cramps, hyperventilation, rapid pulse, headache, confusion, lethargy, and muscle weakness, which can then give way to hallucinations, convulsions, and unconsciousness. If not properly treated, heatstroke can be fatal, sometimes within thirty minutes, often within 24 hours, or if the kidneys are seriously damaged – as was most likely the case with Marshall – at a later date due to heart failure. In 1917 doctors did not understand that heatstroke was partly due to the loss of bodily salts and could easily have been remedied and treated. Instead, the best

that could be done was to relieve symptoms with cold water and reduce body temperature and hope the patient would recover on his own. In the last summer of the Sinai campaign heatstroke, rather than battle wounds, or the many diseases, pests and parasites that plagued the Egyptian campaign, became the main cause of admission to hospital.

While John had been away, Catherine Marshall had gone to stay with her father-in-

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law Archibald Marshall in Dundee. Life in a multiple-unit dwelling with two small children may well have been trying, though it would appear the Marshall family was used to living in cramped quarters. But Archibald Marshall appears to have died or left Dundee by 1918. At the time of John Marshall’s death, Catherine was living in Perth, at 67 Methven Street (pictured above). Perth had been where they had lived as a young married couple before coming to Canada. Perhaps they still had family and friends there.

But John Marshall was not in Perth, where there was a major military hospital. He was at the Dykebar Military Hospital in Paisley, near Glasgow, where he died. Dykebar (pictured at left) was a “Lunatic Asylum” that had opened in 1909. By 1914 it had six villas and a collection of buildings including a nurses’ quarters, reception area, service buildings, and a mortuary, and housed 300 patients. From 1916 to 1919 it was taken over for use as a war hospital and the psychiatric patients were dispersed among other institutions. Marshall was therefore at Dykebar because he was sick, not because he was insane, though he may have suffered brain damage. A question that might be asked is whether, if he was in long-term convalescence in Paisley, his wife and

family might have lived there. Since she was in Perth it may be that he had not been at Paisley for a long time and/or was expected to recover. All this is merely surmise.

On the communion roll beside his name is noted “killed in action in France, March 1918.” The MacKay Death Register equally erroneously records that he “died of ‘Gas’ in hospital in Perth Scotland, 15 March 1918, a brave soldier.” These errors indicate that there had not been much communication between MacKay people and Mrs. Marshall, but they did know her address in Perth.

And it was in Perth, at Wellshill Cemetery, that John Marshall is buried, with a headstone that imitates the Commonwealth War Graves stones. Wellshill is the main cemetery for Perth and is very large indeed.

Wellshilll is also a Commonwealth War Graves site with over 80 soldiers from the First World War. This is because the 100-bed Perth Royal Infirmary, constructed between 1911 and 1914, was, like Dykebar, taken over as a military hospital treating long-term

convalescent patients. Thousands of British soldiers were brought here and to other Perth-area hospitals, and those who died during the war and in the months following were buried in Wellshill, in graves scattered through the cemetery. In the corner of the cemetery with the highest concentration of soldiers’ burials, a Memorial Cross was erected after the

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war which, as its inscription states, is “one in design and intention with those which have been set up in France and Beligum and in other places throughout the world where our dead of the Great War are laid to rest.” On the base of the cross is the inscription found on the War Stones in Commonwealth cemeteries: “Their name liveth for evermore.” The headstones are similar in size and designed to those in Commonwealth cemeteries, with the name and rank of the soldier, sometimes a cross, and the badge of his regiment, with a small inscription provided by the family; but they are of rougher grey granite rather than cream-coloured limestone, and the lettering is outlined in black. The Cross is also in granite rather than marble.

During the Second World War the hospital was also used as a military hospital, and there are dozens more Commonwealth graves from that conflict. Further, another part of the cemeterry has been set aside for Polish war graves. Some 200,000 Polish soldiers, sailors, and airmen served in Britain, with about half in Scotland, and in 1941 the Polish government-in-exile asked that a cemetery be established in Perth. About half the Polish war dead are buried here, with a monument, including burials up to 1948. The map shows the location of the various elements in this cemetery.

Marshall is not located with the majority of the Commonwealth soldiers, and is far away from the Great Cross, is in the ‘Parochial” section, or P-1, section E, marked in green on the map. This is, of course, because he was not a patient at the hospital but died elsewhere and was brought here for burial by his wife. There is no cross on his stone, but there is an inscription: “He died that we might live.”

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On July 7, 1918 Catherine Marshall received John’s personal effects and back pay of £25 15s 1d, and on February 22, 1919, £10 war service gratuity, in addition to whatever pension she was entitled to as a widow and for the children. She also received his war and victory medals. In April, 1918, only a month after John’s death, she was granted a certificate of disjunction from MacKay Presbyterian. Perhaps they had intended to come back when the war was over.

On July 18, 1919, at the age of 45, she remarried, to James Clark, 42, of Canal Street, Perth. We know nothing of him, his occupation, or what their connection was. They moved to 2 Hill Street, Cranstonhill, Glasgow, in the Anderston district, and lived there through the 1920s. We are unable to trace her movements after this, or what happened to the children. She and her family fade out of MacKay’s story of which they had been a part for less than two years.