Published: Thursday, 29th May, 2008 08:10
Honour for wartime hero
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ON THE 91st anniversary of his death in battle, a Tranent-born soldier is to be honoured in a ceremony at the town’s war memorial.
Scots Guardsman, Private Robert Liddle Kilgour was killed in action, aged 24, on July 31 1917, during the third Battle of Ypres at Boesinghe, commonly known as Passchendaele.
As part of a joint campaign by Fa’side councillor Donald Grant and Edinburgh man Robert Lawson – who uncovered the history of the ‘forgotten’ soldier – his name will now be engraved on the Winton Place war memorial.
Mr Grant told the Courier: “Arrangements are being finalised and we plan to do the ceremony on July 31.
“I hope that we can also involve Tranent and Elphinstone Community Council and make this a real community event.”
He added that a piper with Lothian and Borders Police Pipe Band would be performing during the ceremony.
Private Kilgour was born in Station Cottage – which still stands today in Elphinstone Road – in February, 1892.
He left Tranent as a teenager to work as a tinsmith in Edinburgh and enlisted in the Third Reserve Battalion of the Scots Guards in 1915. Nine months later he was transferred to France as a member of the First Battalion.
He is buried in the Artillery Wood Cemetery, north of Ypres.
Nearly 600,000 men were killed during Passchendaele, known to historians as one of the bloodiest battles of the four-year conflict.
Private Kilgour’s niece and nephew, Agnes Grant, 81, and Robert Kilgour MBE, 84 – named after the uncle he never knew – plan to attend the ceremony, with Mr Lawson.
Mr Kilgour – a former Pipe Major – welcomed the news that his uncle’s sacrifice would now be recognised and added: “I’m not in the best of health but I would love to attend and I very much hope to make it.”
The Tranent war memorial features the names of more than 90 local heroes, who fell in the First and Second World Wars.
Mr Lawson told the Courier: “I’ve done this kind of thing many times and I’m really pleased for Bobby.
“I had hoped that East Lothian Council would recognise Robert Kilgour and they have done.
“It’s not the first new name to be added.
“And I’m sure that if people dug deeper they would find many others,” he said.
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