James Masterton

Private James Masterton

56 1/3rd Scottish Horse Yeomanry

killed in action 3rd November 1915


aged 23


Lala Baba Cemetery, Gallipoli


Son of James Masterton and Agnes Cecilia Inglis
Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland

Genealogy

James Masterton was born in Hanson Place, Coatbridge, Lanark, Scotland on 25 August 1892, the eldest of a family of nine born to James Masterton, gardener, and Agnes Cecilia Inglis. James followed the same career as his father and by 1911, was working as a gardener in Westerlee House, West Coates, Edinburgh, Scotland. His parents were then living in Newland Lodge, Borthwick, Midlothian, Scotland. By November 1915, his parents were in The Firs Cottage, Mingavie.

Further details of James, his parents and eight siblings and the extended family of Mastertons that originally flourished in the Largo area can be found at the following link.

His War

The 1/3rd Scottish Horse Yeomanry was formed in August 1914 and moved to join the 1/1st Scottish Horse, then in Northumberland. From January 1915 it was attached to 2nd Northumberland Division working on coastal defences. On 17 August 1915, it was dismounted and sailed on Transylvania from Devonport, via Malta, for service at Gallipoli. They landed at Suvla Bay on 2 September 1915 and came under orders of 2nd Mounted Division, the Territorial Force cavalry.

James was killed in the Suvla Bay fire trenches on 3rd November 1915. Unusually, the War Diaries of his battalion record the names of "Other Ranks" killed. The entry for 3rd November reads:

1 killed No 56 Pte J Masterton, 3 to hospital. Work on main trench carried on. Quiet day.

It was to be a quiet day indeed for James.

By then, the decision by Kitchener to abandon the Gallipoli campaign was imminent.

The eight month campaign in Gallipoli was fought by Commonwealth and French forces in an attempt to force Turkey out of the war, to relieve the deadlock of the Western Front in France and Belgium, and to open a supply route to Russia through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea. The Allies landed on the peninsula on 25-26 April 1915; the 29th Division at Cape Helles in the south and the Australian and New Zealand Corps north of Gaba Tepe on the west coast, an area soon known as Anzac. On 6 August, further troops were put ashore at Suvla, just north of Anzac, and the climax of the campaign came in early August when simultaneous assaults were launched on all three fronts. The aim of the Suvla force had been to quickly secure the sparsely held high ground surrounding the bay and salt lake, but confused landings and indecision caused fatal delays allowing the Turks to reinforce, and only a few of the objectives were taken with difficulty. The Lala Baba cemetery was formed after the Armistice by the concentration of nine smaller cemeteries and a few isolated graves from the surrounding area. There are now 216 servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 53 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials commemorate 16 casualties known or believed to be buried among them.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Lala Baba Cemetery, Historical Information
accessed 26 March 2016

His parents' village also remembers him, on the Milngavie Memorial.


James's name on Milngavie War Memorial is four from the foot of the upper panel in this image.

The Scotsman

In Memoriam
In loving memory of Private JAMES MASTERTON, 1/3 Scottish Horse, eldest and dearly beloved son of Mr and Mrs Masterton. Killed at Gallipoli, 3rd November 1915.

It is not the tears at the moment shed
That tell how beloved is the soul that is fled
But the tears through many a long night wept
And the sad remembrance so fondly kept.

Inserted by his parents, sisters, and brothers:-Baldernock, Milngavie.

The Scotsman
Edinburgh
3 November 1916

Other Sources

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