Private Thomas Patterson

Private Thomas Patterson, 1st/9th (Glasgow Highlanders) Battalion, Highland Light Infantry. He was killed in action in France, aged 27, on 15th July, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Thiepval, Somme, France. He had been born in Kelso and was the son of James and the late Bessie Patterson of Sheddon Park Road, Kelso. He had been living in Dundas Street,  Glasgow when he enlisted.  He fell in a doomed attack on the notorious High Wood where the Battalion lost 182 killed and many more wounded. ( An excellent and moving account of this action can be found in the splendid book ” Come on Highlanders” by Alec Weir ). After the War a Cairn was erected at High Wood as a personal tribute by Alex Aitken with each stone representing each one of the Glasgow Highlanders died there 14th/15th July 1916.   Again after the War an impressive Memorial was raised to commemorate the 51st(Highland) Division of which the Battalion was part. It was erected in Newfoundland Park overlooking “Y” Ravine on the Somme where on 13th November 1916 the Division had stormed the strong German positions in Beaumont Hamel. A Plaque on the Memorial reads in both English and Gaelic ” Friends Are Good On The Day Of Battle”. The photographs show Highlanders  on the Somme with the colour image showing part of the peaceful Somme landscape today with “no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now”.

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