The Somme Remembered – 18th July 1916

Ian Lacy McGregor, born in August 1891, was the son of James McGregor and his wife Eunice Dacre Lacy.

Balmenach Distillery via Whisky distilleries

In 1901, the family were living at Strathmore, Seabank Road, Nairn.  James worked as a manager and MD of Balmenach Distillery. Ian at the time was a scholar.  It seems that the McGregor family had been connected to the Balmenach Distillery for some years as originally a James McGregor had been one of the first distillers to apply for a licence to distill legally – James having originally been a moonshine distiller in the Tomintoul area for a while.

Cameron Highlanders

Ian enlisted into the Cameron Highlanders, being given the service number 14564.  He was given a commission which was recorded in the Gazette (London) issue of 22nd September 1914 and by September of the following year (1915) he is in France as part of the 5th battalion which had been formed at Inverness in August of 1914, as part of Kitchener’s new army, moved to Aldershot before landing at Boulogne on 10th of May 1915 – some six months before Ian stood on French soil.  The Battalion saw action in The Battle of Loos, The Battles of the Somme and after Ian’s death – the Arras Offensive, Ypres battles and Cambrai to name a few.

Thiepval Memorial

Ian Lacy McGregor was killed in action 100 years ago and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing with over 72,000 other casualties of war whose final resting place is not known.

Ian’s medal card tells, as I have said earlier, that he originally enlisted as a private and goes on to inform about his medal entitlement, his commission date and date of death and cause. Also mentioned is his father’s address – Balmenach, Cromdale, Scotland.

During the time I have been looking for Ian, I have found that in many records he is listed in the transcript index as J L McGregor – it appears that some transcribers are a little confused by the elaborate writing of years ago, and some I just wonder if they were looking at a different document as the writing is very clear.  Anyway, the Register of Soldiers’ Effects for Ian, when looking at his name in the document I wonder what the indexers were doing as the original bares no resemblance to the J L MacGregor indexed! But he was owed sums of money from the War Office which was transferred by transfer 2250 C,P. Base.

The service records for Ian are available from the National Archives, but sadly are not available to download.