Private James Ballantyne Scott

Private James Ballantyne Scott, 72nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders of Canada(Canadian Infantry).  He was killed in action, aged 38, in Belgium on the 30th October 1917 during the Battle of Third Ypres. He had been born in Earlston in 1879 and was the son of James Ballantyne and Margaret Healey and the stepson of William Scott of Clarilaw, Bowden whom he had married in Earlston in 1884. He had emigrated to Canada and had been in business as a motor mechanic in West Vancouver, British Columbia. He enlisted in February 1917 and landed in France in May 1917. He is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. The photos try to give an idea of the atrocious ground conditions where the incessant shelling had destroyed the fragile Flanders drainage systems.