Dunlop, Hugh Stewart Arthur (1899 - 1918)

Second Lieutenant, 5th Training Depot Station Royal Air Force

Buried at Cathcart Cemetery

Commemorated at Hillhead High School

Second Lieutenant Hugh Stewart Archer Dunlop was the elder son of Mr. and Mrs. George A. Dunlop, 2 Teviot Terrace, Glasgow. He was known at School as a steady, reliable boy of quiet and unassuming manner, but of strong, resolute will. He was an enthusiastic member of the First Glasgow Troop of Boy Scouts, and there are few of its degrees which he did not possess.

On August, 1914, though only sixteen years of age, he joined up as a dispatch rider and draft conductor, conveying recruits to their various depots in Scotland and Ireland. Some months later he transferred to the Glasgow Highlanders. There his Scout training stood him in good stead, and he received rapid promotion.

In April, 1917, he was recommended for a commission, and he spent some months in a cadet school near Plymouth. Soon after finishing his course an urgent call was made for volunteers for the Royal Air Force. This service made strong appeal to Hugh's bold and venturesome spirit, and he at once responded. He received his training in the Royal School of Aeronautics at Reading, and was then sent to Stamford, Lincolnshire, to complete his practical course.

His letters describing his experiences as a flying man are full of vivid description, and clearly reveal the self-confident, self-possessed aerial pilot. He passed all his tests with the utmost credit and was certified as giving promise of becoming a really first-rate pilot.

On the 4th April, 1918, the day on which he was to receive his wings, he was invited to go up for a short flight by an instructor who was waiting for his observer. The machine had hardly left the aerodrome when it crashed, and both occupants were killed instantaneously. It is indeed tragic to think of the gallant Hugh, with his ardent desire for service, thus cut off on the very brink of opportunity.