Donald Ross

Donald attended University for three years and had a respectable academic record. He took Humanities subjects in his first year, and in his second year studied Latin at Higher Ordinary level, together with Ordinary level Logic and Botany. In his final year he took Education and English to Ordinary level. While at University, Donald also studied concurrently for a teaching qualification from the Glasgow Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers, forerunner of Jordanhill College of Education, now the University of Strathclyde. He took professional classes at the Glasgow Provincial Training College for three years and in the summer of 1911 qualified for the Teacher’s General Certificate, with additional qualifications to teach music and physical exercises in primary schools. He was appointed to a teaching post at Quarrybrae Public School in Parkhead from 11 September 1911, and subsequently taught at Kelvinhaugh Primary School. Donald graduated M.A. on 16 November 1911 and married his wife, Sadie, before war began.

Lieutenant Donald Ross served with the 2nd Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry. He was commissioned in January 1915, and served with ‘B’ company in France from December 1915 to November 1916, when he was killed in action at the village of Beaumont- Hamel on the Somme. The village had first been attacked in July 1916, when the British forces were unable to hold it. On 13 November, they succeeded in recapturing it. This action was part of the Battle of the Ancre, the final large attack by the British during the Battle of the Somme. Lieutenant Donald Ross died, aged 26, on 13 November or shortly thereafter, his exact date of death being uncertain; and lies in Beaumont-Hamel British Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, Sadie, of 5 Whitehill Gardens, Dennistoun, and by his parents, Alexander and Mary Ross of Glen Urquhart, who suffered a second sad loss when Donald’s younger brother George, a Private in the Black Watch, was killed in action in France on 28 July 1918, aged 21. The brothers are remembered on the family gravestone at Kilmore Old Churchyard in Drumnadrochit. Donald is also remembered on the Roll of Honour of the Glasgow Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers, and on the Glasgow Training College War Memorial, located in the David Stow Building on the former Jordanhill Campus.