Second Lieutenant Nichol Elliot

Second Lieutenant Nichol Elliot 1st Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment attached to the 2nd Trench Mortar Battery  formerly of the London Regiment ( Artists Rifles ) He was killed in action in Belgium on 10th July 1917, aged 44, during the Battle of Lombartzyde and is commemorated on the Nieuport Memorial Belgium. He hads been born in Tweedmouth and was the son of Mary and the late William Elliot of Luke’s Brae, Coldstream. He began work as an apprentice joiner in Coldstream and developed an interest in photography. He set up in business as a photographer in the Town before going to London and then Vienna to complete his studies at the Academy of Graphic Arts. He obtained employment in Vienna and travelled as far as Russia as their representative.  He married Alice Maddock who was teaching English Literature at the University of Vienna. They then moved to Canada where he was employed in Toronto as a photographic expert. On the outbreak of War he enlisted in a local Regiment but returned Home in 1915 to join the Artist’s Rifles O.T.C.. Originally he served in the trenches as a Private from early 1916 before gaining his Commission in April 1917 in the 1st Northamptons. He and 24 brother Officers and many of the Other Ranks fell that day when his Regiment together with a Battalion of the Kings Royal Rifles were cut off by a surprise German Offensive in the sand dunes near Nieuport. Over 500 Officers and Other Ranks were lost and many of these men are also commemorated on the Nieuport Memorial.

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