Lance Sergeant John Joyce

Lance Sergeant John Joseph Joyce, 12th (Service) Battalion, Royal Scots. He was killed in action in France, aged 34, on 14th July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme and is buried in Quarry Cemetery, Montauban, Somme, France. He fell in the attack on Longueval where ferocious hand to hand fighting took place with the Battalion suffering heavy casualties. He had been born in Clovenfords and was the son of the late John and Elizabeth Joyce of West Mains Lauder. As a young man he had been a ploughman at Shielfield farm, Lauder but when he enlisted he had been a gamekeeper at Brodick Castle, Arran. The photograph shows the remains of Longueval after its eventual capture.