Roll of Honour
2nd Lieutenant
William Walter McFarlane
Student
William Walter McFarlane already had the makings of a career in civil engineering when the war claimed his full attention and then his life. He was born in Glasgow in 1889. His father, Walter, was a mining engineer who had worked in Johannesburg but died before his son began the first year of an Engineering B.Sc. at Glasgow in 1909. William was educated first at George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, from 1901 to 1906 and then at Morrison’s Academy in Crieff. He was eighteen in 1909 when he enrolled in Ordinary Maths and Nat.Phil.as the prelude to an engineering curriculum. At that time he lodged at 65 Bank Street, his home being in West Kilbride, at 7 Bay View, though the family later moved to 9 Strathmore Gardens, Hillhead. William had a chequered academic career. Although he passed most of his exams without too much trouble, Higher Maths eluded him altogether and in the session 1912 to 1913 he stopped short of taking Engineering 1V, Engineering Drawing and Laboratory through to the degree exam diet. He did, however, take first place in Mining Engineering in the same year. He left in 1913 without graduating and went to work for Sir William Arrol, the great civil engineer whose firm built the Forth Bridge. William had a career in view.
In January 1915 he volunteered for service wih the Lovat Scouts. William served as a Private in Gallipoli. On his return home he took a commission with the Royal Field Artillery, ‘D’ Battery, 256th Lowland Brigade. Second Lieutenant McFarlane was acting as a liaison officer when he was reported missing on the 20th April 1918. On that day he was found dead by the Germans and buried at Vieille-Chapelle. The village cemetery there had fallen into German hands in April 1918 during the Battle of Lys, in which William’s Battery was engaged. It was recaptured by the Allies in September 1918. The circumstances of his burial made it impossible to identify his actual grave but the New Military Cemetery at Vieille-Chapelle was recorded as his final resting place by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the 14th April 1921. He is remembered there and on the memorials of his old schools, Morrison’s Academy and George Watson’s College, and by his university.
Comments and Citations
University of Glasgow Registry Records (Matriculation R8/5/28/5-R8/5/34/5), R6/54, Calendars
University of Glasgow ROH Ch4/4/2/3/361, 361a
CWGC Debt of Honour
ROH Morrison's Academy, George Watson's College