Lieutenant Colonel John Stormonth-Darling D.S.O.

Lieutenant John Collier Stormonth-Darling, D.S.O., M.I.D., 1st Battalion, Cameronians att. 9th Battalion ( Glasgow Highlanders ) Highland Light Infantry. He was killed in action in France on 1st November 1916 at the very end of the Battle of the Somme, aged 38. He had been born in Kelso and was the son of Katherine Scott Stormonth-Darling and the late Patrick and is buried in Guillemont Road Cemetery, Guillemont, Somme, France. His education had been at Cordwalles and Loretto schools and his sports had been hunting with the Duke of Buccleugh,  point to point racing and shooting. He had seen action during the Second Anglo Boer War and in August 1900 he was commissioned into the 2nd Battalion Scottish Rifles ( Cameronians ). At the start of the War he was Adjutant of the 1st Cameronians and in November 1915 he was given command of the 9th Battalion H.L.I. He was killed by a sniper whilst doing the rounds of his positions near Le Transloy . Having been mentioned in despatches for the second time he was awarded a posthumous D.S.O. for ” services in connection with operations in the field “. ( He was given an obituary in Wisden’s Cricketers Almanac in 1917 although he seems not to have any connection with the game). The photographs show a group of the Highlanders in a trench on the Somme and the condition of the ground after the autumn rains. The colour image shows a peaceful Somme landscape today.