GAREN EWING
GE
Julius Chancer about blog comics events readers' corner shop contact
About
This is the blog of Garen Ewing, writer, illustrator and researcher, creator of the award-winning Adventures of Julius Chancer, and lover of classic film, history, humanism and karate.

Categories
A-Z comic characters (28)
Captain Powerchord (12)
Comics (133)
Family History (39)
Film (31)
Julius Chancer (276)
Music (15)
Sketchbook (30)
Webbledegook (90)
Work (50)

total posts: 704

Archives
Last 12 months

02/21
01/21
12/20
08/20
07/20
06/20
04/20
03/20
01/20
12/19
11/19
08/19

view archive index

Community
Julius Chancer Facebook page Garen Ewing Twitter Garen Ewing Instagram Webbledegook RSS

Websites
Garen Ewing Illustration
Julius Chancer Comics
Logos For Shows
Family History
Afghan War 1878-80
Films Podcast
Karate Kagami
Home Page

Popular posts
Some thoughts on creating comics
On manga and style
2009 British comics scene
Things I do like in comics
Things I don't like in comics
Comment collection
Old friends
Doodles

Search Webbledegook

Visit
Murray Ewing
Elyssa Campbell-Barr
Colin Mathieson
Dave West
Linda's Rainbow Orchid page

more links ...

Twitter
Tweets by garenewing

log in

BLOG : WEBBLEDEGOOK
powered by inkyBlog
| back to blog |

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY IX
Tue 11 Nov 2014

My ninth Remembrance Sunday post is a couple of days late this year, but as I was in Germany on that particular day I hope you will forgive me. Today, however, is Armistice Day in the 100th anniversary year of the commencement of the First World War and I'm going to write a little bit about my great-great uncle, Alexander Rough Phillip, also known as Wee Eck.

He was Wee Eck because he was the youngest son (though two girls would come after him) of Andrew Phillip, a stone mason from Inverkeillor, and Betsy Rough, of Kettins. The family was mostly girls - seven in all, with just four boys (though one died of croupe at three years old). You can see little Alex standing on the right, holding his mother's arm, in this photograph of the Phillip family from about 1886, about the time they moved to Dundee.

Alexander had the misfortune to be born in a fateful era - the final two decades of Queen Victoria's reign, whose children were ushered into the brave new twentieth century, then raked into the First World War, only to be torn apart and buried in the mud of Flanders, the sands of the Middle East, and the weather-worn hills of Gallipoli.

Wee Eck followed his father into the masonry business, but when the war blew across Europe he enlisted with the City of Dundee Royal Engineers, soon being posted to the 446th Northumbrian Field Company. In July of 1917 he found himself in the Hindenburg support trenches, and on the first day of August he and another Sapper, Henry Cawley, were killed outright by a German shell as they worked in the Swift support trench, right on the front line near to Chérisy.

His commanding officer, Major C. E. Boost, wrote to his father the very next day, the day his colleages buried him at Heninal ...

"I am very sorry to have to tell you that your son, Sapper Phillips [sic] of this Coy., was killed yesterday by a shell in the front trench system. In your great sadness I feel that it would help to know that your son has done splendid work whilst with the company. His close attention to duty and willingness to do anything that was required of him has earned himself a reputation not only with the men of his section, but with his section officers ... I am enclosing his cap badge which I feel you would like ..."

A fellow engineer, Sapper Thomas Brown, wrote a couple of weeks later to Alex's younger sister, Jemima ...

"I hope you will excuse me for intruding upon your grief, but I thought you would like to hear from one that was not far from your brother when he was killed. Please take comfort in the fact that his death was instantaneous and that he died a steady and true soldier, in the cause of his King and country. I cannot speak too highly of your brother for he and I were the best of pals for the all too short time I knew him, and I always felt he was a man to be relied on. I think the way him and I got on so well together was because we were about the only Scots in this lot, so you know we are a little clannish. As long as we stay here I will see that his grave his kept green for it is a sacred spot to me ..."

Look at the family photo above once again. The eldest child, Betsy, just behind Wee Eck, lost two sons in the war - Henry, at Gallipoli in July 1915, and Andrew, who drowned in Ireland while convalescing from wounds received in action at Combles. The tall chap at the back is John, the eldest son. He lost his boy, Alexander, just a few months after his little brother was killed, in December 1917, and another son, William, was poisoned in a gas attack in April 1918 - and survived. The wider Phillip family also suffered. Andrew's brother, James Phillip, lost a grandson, William, at Meteran, with another of his four serving sons wounded.

Alex's mother, Betsy, whose arm he holds in the photograph, died in 1899, so she would never know the horror of the war and the fate of her son and three grandchildren. His father, Andrew, carried the grief of his family's loss until his death in 1931, at the age of 87. He outlived five of his 11 children.

See my WWI family war memorial here.


Sapper Alex Phillip, Wee Eck, in a family photo and from a news extract after his death.
posted 11.11.14 at 11:11 am in Family History | permalink |

Comments:

Colin M, on Wednesday 12 November 2014 at 5:57 pm, says:
Very poignant Garen, your family memorials do them all proud, even if it is all too real and sad.

Garen, on Wednesday 12 November 2014 at 10:35 pm, says:
Thank you, Colin. I'm learning lots about WWI doing this research, but it can be pretty raw sometimes. Having a personal connection of some kind makes it very real, and not all that distant.

Jackson, on Friday 14 November 2014 at 9:15 am, says:
Lest we forget all those who gave their lives so we could live in a decent world

Garen, on Saturday 15 November 2014 at 10:53 am, says:
Indeed. I'm on a mission to seek out as many relatives - no matter how distant - as possible who served in WWI, and especially those who did not survive. Quite often they were too young to have families and are largely forgotten.

Steve, on Tuesday 23 June 2015 at 7:32 pm, says:
Garen, Alexander was a brother of my 2G Grandfather John Phillip. This blog was very interesting and wee bit moving, i had never heard of these letters before from his Commanding Officer and from a comrade. It was particularly interesting as i am also Alexander Phillip albeit i go by my middle name Steve. I have a copy of the family photograph with Andrew and Betsy but i had not seen the the two portrait photos before either. I had a look at your war archive as well and noticed you had a list of your ancestors from Napoleonic times onward. A couple of years back i found a Napoleonic ancestor that we will have in common he was Private James Phillip(s) of the 71st Rgt of Foot. His army listing online was Phillips as were some census records but his death cert in 1865 was back to Phillip. I found him by accident on the 1861 Arbroath census and my interest was piqued when i saw he was an army pensioner but that was not all his 45 year old son who was living at the same address was listed as being born in Belgium! A little digging later and i found that he had fought throughout the Peninsular campaign and at Waterloo. From his death cert his parents were James Phillip and Jean Dormand therefore he was the brother of my 5G Grandfather Andrew Phillip (born 1780). His Waterloo medal listing online lists his birthplace as Inverhillen which i assume is a bad transcription of Inverkeillor as there is no such place as Inverhillen. I was still puzzled by his son being born in Belgium though until an expert explained to me that many of the wives went on campaign in the baggage trains and were used as cooks, adhoc nurses and laundresses. I hope this will be of interest to you. Regards Steve. P.S i think we may have emailed in the past regarding Family History but its been a while since i last did a bit of research.

Garen, on Sunday 28 June 2015 at 12:03 am, says:
Thank you very much for your comment, Steve. I have replied to your email!

Add a comment:

Please feel free to comment on this webbledegook entry or respond to its comments. Anything that may offend or that appears spammy will be deleted. Anything else is most welcome.

Name or alias (required):

Email address (required, not displayed):

URL (optional, displayed):
http://
Comment:

Security code:
Please type the word that appears below, in the text box.

securitycode
Remember me


| back to blog |
Webbledegook, Julius Chancer, The Rainbow Orchid, story, artwork, characters and website © 1997 and 2021 Garen Ewing & inkytales.