Lawson, William
Rank: 2nd Lieutenant
Regiment: 1st Battalion (attached to 8th Battalion) Royal Scots Fusiliers
Biography: Son of Robert Lawson, Beaufort Home Farm, Beauly ; born Kiltarlity, 23 March 1879 ; gold medallist of Inverness Royal Academy ; took a distinguished place in his University classes and graduated M.A. in 1900 with First Class Honours in Mental Philosophy. He was a teacher in Nairn Academy, thereafter in Ayr, first in Russell Street School and later as First Assistant in Newton Park School. In 1915 Lawson enlisted in the 15th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and took part in much of the hard fighting in France in 1916-17. In January 1918 he was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant Royal Scots Fusiliers, and spring of the same year found him serving on the Macedonian front. On 19 September 1918 he was killed in action in the great frontal attack on those practically impregnable positions west of Lake Doiran. In such a shadowy outline one might sketch the life and achievements of a mere acquaintance. To refrain from adding an appreciation on behalf of a most endearing personality would be rank ingratitude for the boon of a splendid comradeship. In scholarship he excelled, combining with his high natural ability, tireless effort. Realizing the responsibility of the calling he had chosen, he used his many talents to their fullest advantage. Such a sincere, wholesome character, too, must have made him in his capacity as a teacher an immeasurable influence for good, and on children with their hero-worshipping natures, his gallant death would have an ennobling effect.
Date of Death: 19 September 1918
Burial Details: Buried at Doiran Military Cemetery, Plot 1, Row E, Grave 10.
Publication: Roll of Service, edited by Mabel Desborough Allardyce. Published 1921.
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