Harvey, Roy Douglas 41980 (1892 - 1918)

Private, 5th/ 6th Bn. Royal Scots

Buried at Bouchoir New British Cemetery

Commemorated at Hillhead High School

Private Roy D. Harvey was the elder son of Mrs. Harvey, 57 Ancaster Drive, Glasgow. He entered School in 1898, and left in 1915, when he removed to Bearsden. At School he is remembered as a reserved, thoughtful boy, who at all times set before himself and acted up to a high ideal of conduct. He was noted for his thoroughness, accuracy, and precision, and took a good place in all his classes.

On leaving School he began business in the coal export trade, but on his father's death he left to manage his business at 398 Byres Road. During the earlier part of the war he was prevented from enlisting by a physique which fell below the standard then required. The time came when military exigencies led to a lowering of the standard, and Roy met the call with alacrity and relief.

After the usual period of training he left for France in October, 1917. He came safely through the fiercely contested Battle of Cambrai, but soon afterwards was invalided home with trench fever. He returned to France in the spring of 1918, and shared the dangers and hardships of that trying time. Three days after the sweeping British advance on the 8th August, in a gallant and successful attack by his battalion, the 56th Royal Scots, he was struck by a bullet, and killed instantaneously.

A Canadian who found his body was the first to send home the sad news. It was quite characteristic of Roy that in his pocket were found a diary written up to 10th August, the day before he fell, and a Gem Collins' Dictionary. His precise, methodical habits were maintained even amid the dangers of the battlefield and the discomforts of the trenches.

Part of the comfort which remains to those left to mourn is the thought that every such life laid down in generous sacrifice not only makes for a purer and better world, but inherits the promise of fuller and more abundant life. To his widowed mother, his sister and
brother, the whole-hearted sympathy of the School is extended.