Hay Guthrie was killed in action on this day in 1916

Hay Guthrie was killed in action on this day in 1916.

In the days before 16 April, a local newspaper recounted the words of one Seaforth Highlander, describing the barrages that were being endured by the 6th Seaforth Highlanders at Roclincourt:

‘These mortars are of a tremendous size. You can see them coming through the air, twirling round and round and then they reach the earth a terrific explosion occurs….they are filled with nails, pieces of iron and lead pellets which fly in all directions. The weather isn’t the best just now and the trenches are very muddy’.

One mortar bomb explosion in a dugout killed three men (all from Morayshire) on 16 April 1916 and wounded several others. Lance Corporal Hay Guthrie, from Elgin, was killed instantly as he stepped outside of the dugout.

He was born on 20 (or 28) March 1881, the son of Hay and Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Guthrie who lived in Elgin. In 1911, he was a gardener, living at 8 Hill Terrace, Elgin, the home of his partner, Isabella 'Bella' Shearer and her 3 children. Hay and Isabella also had a daughter, Elizabeth, aged 7 months.

He enlisted on the outbreak of war and went to France with the Battalion on 1 May 1915. When he was home on leave, he married Isabella on 04 January 1916.

Colonel Grant Smith wrote to Hay’s widow thus:

‘He is buried near the spot where he fell, and I am arranging to erect a memorial cross in the cemetery here, which will bear your husband’s name, and after it has been erected I hope to send you a sketch of it. Your husband’s brothers were near him when he fell, but are uninjured’.

The grave was obviously lost in later fighting and Hay Guthrie is commemorated on the Arras Memorial (below).

Barely six weeks after Hay's death, his younger brother Harry died of wounds sustained in early June 1916.

1705 Lance Corporal Hay Guthrie, 6th Bn Seaforth Highlanders