Lawson, James Burnett (1897 - 1918)

Lieutenant, 2nd Bn. Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)

Buried at Pozieres Memorial

Commemorated at City of Glasgow Roll of Honour at Glasgow City Chambers

Educated at Rothesay Academy, James Burnett Lawson planned to follow a medical career, as his father had done. James Burnett Lawson senior was a well-known general practitioner in Rothesay. He was a Glasgow graduate who was awarded an MB CM 1883 and an MD in 1886. In addition to a busy practice he was Medical Officer of Rothesay parish and Bute schools, a Justice of the Peace and President of Bute Benevolent Society. He married Elizabeth Gilchrist Campbell and the couple settled at 3 Brighton Terrace, where they brought up their family. James junior went up to the University of Glasgow in the autumn of 1914 to study Medicine, aged seventeen. He lodged with Mrs Metcalf at 29 Stanley Street as term began.

His studies were interrupted by war. There was just time to successfully complete his first year. He passed the First Professional exam in October 1915, by which time he had enlisted in the Cameronians. It was no surprise. He had joined the student OTC, and like many of his fellow students was ready to serve his country now and leave studying until later. If active service was what he had in mind, he certainly saw a lot of it. Posted to France, Lieutenant Lawson fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and at Ypres in 1917. On 5th October 1916 he had written of his faith in his commander and his conviction that victory would come eventually:

"No wonder there are wars. No wonder Haig's men have to smash their way up to the Passchendale heights. He is taking the inevitable road to victory. That's why there must be no faltering. Give way to nerves now and all our suffering will have been in vain. Let us rather steel our hearts for the second half of the great fight which begins next spring and ends with complete victory in October 1918."

If he was quite prescient about the date of victory, sadly he would not be there to see it. On 27th March 1918 he was killed at Meharicourt in the German spring offensive. He was 21. His parents learned later that he had just sent in his application to return to University to complete his medical degree under a scheme introduced by the government in 1918 to help replenish the number of doctors in service.

His grieving father James wrote a moving account of his son's life, A Cameronian Officer: Being a Memoir of Lieutenant James Burnett Lawson in which he also told of his futile efforts to bring his son's remains home. Lieutenant Lawson is remembered on the panels of the Pozieres Memorial in France, one of 14,000 British casualties who died as the 5th Army was pushed back over the Somme in March-April of 1918, and whose graves are unknown.

Reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Roll of Honour: http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/ww1-intro/