On 12 October 1915 Private John Murray died of wounds received at Loos. He was in his 19th year.
Born in 1896, the son of William Murray (journeyman mason) and Williamina née Matheson of Little Rogart; John had worked as a journeyman shoemaker. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker, an uncle, at Armadale, West Lothian.
John had enlisted in Edinburgh and joined 7th (Service) Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders (Kitchener’s Army) and his regimental number was 1569. At Loos he had received shrapnel wounds to his left foot which became gangrenous. Having had it successfully amputated, complications set in and he was to die of toxaemia, in Dalmeny House Hospital. His uncle, Alexander Matheson, was the informant.
John was buried in Rogart New Cemetery and commemorated on the Rogart war memorial.
In the Northern Times’ report of his death he was described as “a loveable young fellow, and of a very cheerful disposition, always willing and ready to oblige”.
It was also written that his death “constituted the sixth of the young fellows belonging to the parish”. This death seems to have affected the schoolmaster quite deeply – perhaps because he remembered teaching so many of these young men, just a few years before.