IN FROM THE COLD

The "In From The Cold" project (IFCP) was formed over twenty years ago to research and identify all service men and women missing from the official Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) list of casualties from the First and Second World Wars.

Unfortunately, many names were missed from the lists supplied to the Commission and as a result, many casualties had no official recognition. Record-keeping was not always as accurate as it should have been back in the pre-computer days of the early twentieth century.

With modern technology and the greater accessibility to remaining records, it's possible, through painstaking research, to find many of these missing names, and to gather the supporting evidence required for recognition by the CWGC and the appropriate military authorities.

Alexander John Campbell is one of these cases and we are grateful to IFCP for their work in ensuring that one of our own former pupils of Perth Academy is now officially recognised by the CWGC.

In 1901, the Campbell family were living at Rosslyn Place, Glasgow Road, Perth.

John, the head of the household, was a Coal Merchant who was born in 1854 in Scone, Perthshire. His wife and mother to  seven children was Margaret Miller Goodall who was born in 1857 in Erol, Perthshire.

John and Margaret had six daughters (Maggie, Helen, Jane, Alexina, Whilimina and  Annie). They also had one son - Alex John, who was born in 1897, in Perth. 

Before he enlisted, Alexander John Campbell was an Accountant with the firms of Morison and Company and Ernest Jack in Perth.

Like many young men at that time, he was eager to sign-up and 'do his bit" - so he enrolled in the Black Watch.

On the 28th of February 1917, the Perthshire Advertiser reported:

“Death Of Well Known Perth Young Man.    With startling suddenness there passed away on Sunday last at Stirling Private,  Alexander John Campbell - Black Watch, only son of Mr. and Mrs. John Campbell of Tregaron, Glasgow Road, Perth. In civil life Mr. Campbell was employed as an accountant in the office of Messrs. Morison and Co., C.A., Blackfriars Street, Perth."

"Shortly after the outbreak of war he joined up and passed away in military uniform prepared to do his bit for King and country. He contracted pneumonia and enteric fever at Stirling. The sympathy of the many friends of Mr. and Mrs. Campbell and family go out to them in their present bereavement in the death of their son and brother at 20 years of age.”