Lance Corporal George Hume

Lance Corporal George Hume, 1st/4th ( Border ) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action, aged 34, at Gallipoli on the 12th July 1915 during the “Charge” on the Turkish trenches at Achi Baba Nullah. He had been born in Innerleithen in 1881 and was the son of Henry and the late Isabella Hume of 66 Tweedside Cottages, Walkerburn. Before enlisting in August 1914 he had been employed as a pattern weaver at St Mary’s Mill, Selkirk and he is commemorated on the Helles Memorial, Helles, Gallipoli, Turkey. That fateful day became known as the ” Black Day of the Borders” as out of the over 700 Officers and Other Ranks who had begun the attack only 70 unwounded men answered evening roll call. Few Border towns and villages had not lost at least one of their sons that day. ( The author’s Great Uncle Corporal James Murray was slightly wounded and spent 6 weeks in hospital in Alexandria before re-joining his comrades at Gallipoli or “the Pen” as he called it ). The photo shows the Borderers ” going over the top” at Gallipoli and the second shows Achi Baba, the objective of the attack, marked with a cross and the third shows the battlefield in 1922.