Pentland Road - 2

I am currently going through the names of Royal Navy and Royal Naval Reserve personnel who were lost during the First World War, and this record for a John Smith caught my eye. John Smith Rank: Krooman Branch of Service: Native Cause of Death: Died from disease Official Number Port Division: N.K. Death Date: 3 Apr 1917 Ship or Unit: HMS Ascension Location of Grave: Left Hand Plot. 2. 28. Name and Address of Cemetery: New Cemetery, Ascension Island Mother: Yuah Wemah Gbeah, 6, Little Kroo St, Freetown, Sierra Leone Ascension Island is a remote outpost in the southern Atlantic Ocean, and its New Cemetery contains six Commonwealth burials of the First World War, and two from the Second. What is a Krooman? It is an ex-slave, rescued from West Africa during the 19th century and locally recruited into the Royal Navy (according to Wikipedia). The Kroo were (are?) a tribe from the Kroo area of Liberia and the adjacent coast who had been regularly employed by the Royal Navy onb...

Scottish Highlander, 1 January 1886 Lady Matheson of the Lewis and Her Crofters Lady Matheson has made a fair step in the right direction, having re-lotted part of the Portdue forest which was cultivated many years ago by a happy and contented race of tenantry. A number of Lochsmen have now got lands at fair rent. It is to be hoped that this is but the forerunner of a large scheme of reform in connection with the estate management of the Lewis. [ends] I take Portdue Forest to be the present-day Eishken Estate, bearing in mind the reference to past tenants. 

Scottish Highlander, 28 November 1889 Sheriff Officer Deforced William Ross Macleod, sheriff-officer, Stornoway, accompanied by a concurrent, on Thursday proceeded to Coulregrein, a place about a mile from Stornoway, to poind cattle and effects belonging to some tenants of Lady Matheson, and against whom decrees had lately been passed at her instance for arrears of rent. The tenants lodged applications with the Crofters'Commission to have fair rents fixed, but their cases have not been considered yet, and, meanwhile, the proprietrix is determined to recover her rents by poinding and selling the crofters'cattle and crop. When the officer and his concurrent appeared on the ground, they were prevented from carrying their proposed poindings into effect, a crowd of forty or fifty people, principally women and children, it is stated, attaching him witih stones and sods, and compelling him and his concurrent to withdraw. The officer returned to Stornoway and reported the matter to ...

Checking information on naval personnel from Lewis who served (and died) in the First World War, I came across the entry for a Donald Gillies, born 17 February 1881 at Stoule, Inverness. This translates as Stoul, a hamlet along the shores of Loch Nevis, east of Mallaig in Lochaber. Stoul is now abandoned, but it most certainly was not in 1881. We find 1 month-old Donald at 1 Easter Stoule as the grandson of John and Catharine Gillies, and the son of Ewen and Catherine. They had two other infant children, namely Mary and Sarah. The hamlet is enumerated under the parish of Glenelg, and the registration district of North Morar. View Larger Map   Get Directions   View Bird's Eye Donald perished in the sinking of HMS Anchusa on 16 July 1918. He was 37 years of age, and among 78 crew lost on the sloop which went down off the north coast of Ireland. His mother Catherine, by then living at Bracara near Morar, about 3 miles from Stoule, was notified of his death. Donald's remains w...