The University of Aberdeen will commemorate Remembrance Day this weekend with the launch of a new on-line Roll of Honour – a searchable index of the staff, students and alumni of the University who laid down their lives during the Great War of 1914-1918.
A total of 2,852 University staff, students and alumni served in the Great War, of whom 341 lost their lives. Their service spanned all branches of the Armed Forces. Many enlisted in the University’s “U” Company of the 4th Gordons, others served with the Argyll & Sutherland, Seaforth, and Cameron Highlanders, as well as other army regiments and corps, the Royal Navy, Royal Army Medical Service, and the fledgling Royal Flying Corps. They came from all walks of life, all professions and ages – the youngest to die was only 18, the oldest was 66. Some died in the first weeks of the war, while others, haunted by battlefield illness and the horrors of the war, lived on for some months after the armistice only to die after returning home.
The new resource – In Memoriam – aims to provide the public with on-line access to these details for the first time. It tells the stories of the soldiers and sons of Aberdeen, the North-east, and farther afield who went to war and did not survive to tell their own. It provides photographs of those who fell, along with details of each soldier’s name, rank, unit, honours and decorations, date of birth, date of death, and burial details along with a brief biography containing personal information contributed by friends, family, professors, and military commanders.
Siobhan Convery, Senior Curator, Historic Collections, said: “The biographies illustrate the tragedy, sacrifice, suffering, and overwhelming human cost of the Great War, but also shine with the human qualities of courage, selflessness, and compassion. These are the lives of sons, brothers and friends, as told by those who knew them.”
The biographical content has been taken from two University publications, principally from the Roll of Service, edited by Mabel Desborough Allardyce and published in 1922, and the Roll of Remembrance, published in 1952. Supplementary information has been gathered from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The In Memoriam will be launched on Remembrance Day (Sunday, November 12), and will be accessible online at: www.abdn.ac.uk/historic/memoriam The project has been led by staff and volunteers working in the University’s Historic Collections.