Private Adam Veitch

Private Adam Veitch, 16th ( 2nd Edinburgh) Battalion, Royal Scots. He was killed in action, aged 17, in France on the 1st August 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. He had been born in Selkirk and was the son of Alexander and Isabella Veitch of Cannon Street, Selkirk and 31 Watson Crescent, Edinburgh. He enlisted as a Territorial in the 6th Royal Scots in June 1914. ( He must have been well under age then, possibly only 15 years old ). He went to Gallipoli with the Battalion where hew contracted dysentery and was admitted to hospital. He went to France upon recovery but was transferred to the 16th Royal Scots. He fell during a series of bombing attacks by the Battalion on German trenches near to the notorious High Wood and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France. The photos show Scots troops on the Somme that Summer and the colour image shows a peaceful Somme landscape today. The Battalion was known as “McRae’s Battalion” after Sir George McRae who founded it in November 1914. It was originally formed from professional footballers and their supporters from Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Raith Rovers, Falkirk and Dunfermline.