Private John Youngson

Private John Youngson, 8th ( Service ) Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders. He was killed in action in Belgium on 31st July 1917, aged 35, on the first day of the Battle of Third Ypres and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. He had been born in Gujerat, India to the Reverend John Youngson who was a Church of Scotland missionary and Mrs Helen Youngson. In 1911 he was employed as a gardener and was living in a boarding house in Elderbank Street, St Boswells. He had originally enlisted in the Highland Light Infantry in Glasgow. The photograph shows a group of Seaforth s checking a dugout in a captured German trench and the second shows a Battalion roll call after battle. The colour photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the men of the 9th and 15th ( Scottish ) Divisions who fell during the Battle. The 8th Seaforths were part of the 15th Division. It was erected on Frezenberg Ridge near the village of Zonnebeke in the Ypres Salient and it was unveiled in August 2007. A plaque with a quote in both English and Gaelic from the Declaration of Arbroath is affixed to the front of the Memorial