Sunday 6 January 2013

1st Bn HLI - I Coy Football Team - India 1909


Not the best quality photo in the world, but better than nothing I suppose, particularly if your ancestor happens to be one of the men captured above, and listed below:


This photo of the I Company football team was published on page 21 of the January 1910 issue (Volume X, No 1) of the Highland Light Infantry Chronicle, and many of the men pictured here would go on to serve with the Battalion during WW1. I've not researched all of the names here but Lt Alston was Captain Alston by 1915 and was killed in action at Chateau Redoubt near Neuve Chapelle on the 18th August that year. 5337 Col-Sgt Robert Brisbane, a prisoner of war by April 1915, survived the war as Warrant Officer Class II (and with a silver war badge to accompany his QSA, Delhi Durbar Medal 1911 and 1914 Star trio).

The names of the squad are:

Pte Smith, Pte Corrigan, Pte Docherty, Pte Schwerin, Pte McGeechan, Pte Wiseman, L/Cpl Lawson, Pte Passfield, Pte Reddy, L/Cpl Geake, Captain H T C Singleton DSO, Lt R C W Alston, Col-Sgt Brisbane, Pte Metcalfe, Pte Turner, Pte Olden, Pte Henderson, Pte Bruce.

2 comments:

  1. Col-Sgt Brisbane is my Great Great Uncle. My Gran spoke of him and before she died I researched his military records at Kew. His medals were passed on to my brother after her death. Thank you very much for posting this photo. I have also recently found HLI Chronicles on line in which he is mentioned. We must not forget the sacrifice so many made all those years ago. I know from details of the prisoner war camp he was sent to that he was lucky to have survived.

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  2. 5337 Col-Sgt Brisbane enlisted in July 1894. He's on my army service numbers database and has surviving papers in WO 364 as you have found. Many thanks for commenting.

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