Pte 26076 Roland Douglass

• Age: 19
• From: Springfield, New Brunswick
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• K.I.A Saturday 1st July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

26076 Private Roland DOUGLASS, 18^th Battalion KLR.

SDGW gives this soldier’s birthplace as Dunbar, Scotland. However, no records support this; the birthplace is likely a clerical error.

When he enlisted in Liverpool he gave his residence as Brookfield, Massachusetts. 

The only connection found to Massachusetts is a 14-year old Roland Douglas found on the 1910 U.S. census who at the time was a “state charge” living with Frederick and Phila Holmes and daughters Edna and Bertha in Sturbridge, just south of Brookfield.

Roland Douglas was born in New Brunswick, Canada in 1896, the son of Oscar Burnham Douglas (also known as Bernard) and Fanny L. Pickle, both born in New Brunswick, Oscar in 1872 and Fannie in 1880.  They married in 1895 and lived in Springfield, a small rural community in King’s County, New Brunswick, about 35 miles from St. John’s. Records show the family as (Free Will) Baptist.

Birth records are found for three children: a son (no name listed), born on 20th October 1896, Hannah, born on 16th January 1897, and Grace, born on 20th February 1899. The surname is also spelled Douglass on some records.

The 1901 Canada census shows the family in Springfield (coincidentally in District 18 King’s, the same battalion number and regiment Roland will later join). His father Burnham is 28, employed as a teamster, his mother is 20, “Roly E.” is 4, Hannah 3, and Grace 1 year old. His grandparents Joseph H. and Hannah Burnham Erb Douglas, farmers, live nearby.  Another daughter, Minnie, was born later that year in St. John’s, New Brunswick.  

By 1903 they have moved to Lowell, Massachusetts (30 miles northwest of Boston), a large industrial town and textile centre, which attracted many immigrants, including Canadians.

His sister Grace Douglass died in Lowell on 04th July 1903, aged 3, the family then living at 60 Kirk Street, Lowell.

Minnie (born after the 1901 Census) died two weeks later, on 19th July 1903 at the age of 2.

Further tragedy struck the family when Roland was 9 years old when his mother Fannie died in late 1905 or early 1906, aged 25.  State records show that his father, a drinker, did not support the family, and had left Lowell the year before.

After their mother’s death Roland and his sister Hannah were committed to the State Board of Charity in April 1906 (whose records show a birthdate for him of September 1895 in Lowell, but no birth records exist with these details). They were placed with a family who agreed to keep his sister but could not care for both children.  

On 26th May 1908 the social worker involved with their case reported that Roland was in the fourth grade at school and doing well there and at home. He is described as “a fair sized boy and a fairly capable worker”.  Unfortunately, Roland endured several moves over the next few years. 

In 1910 he was living with the Holmes family. His father, a driver for a lumber company, is living at 46 Gardener street, Newton, a western suburb of Boston.  Hannah is not found on the 1910 census (she married John Joseph Connors in Lowell in August 1914).  His father remarried in Watertown, western Boston, in November 1910 to Sadie Norris and married again in 1915 to Mary Sweet, with whom he had a son, Oscar Burnham, born on 05th March 1917 in Boston. 

From November 1910 Roland was placed in different homes in the North Brookfield area. It appears that Roland, abandoned by his father, led a sad and troubled life. 

In August 1913 a boy attempted to exchange a watch for a bicycle tyre; the shop owner, suspecting the watch was stolen, notified the police, and he appeared in court.  A social worker recognised the boy in the dock as Roland; he was placed on probation and placed in a home. 

Also in 1913 a Fitchburg newspaper (30 miles west of Lowell) reported,

“Harold Smith, alias Roland Douglas, giving his age as 14 [he would have been 16], entered a plea of not guilty to vagrancy.”

Roland ran away from his last home in April 1914, his whereabouts unknown to the child welfare authorities and to his foster families and sister. His sister Hannah, living at 185 Salem Street, in Lowell, wrote enquiring about Roland in March 1915.

Roland enlisted in Liverpool, one source reports on 09th April 1915.  Unfortunately, his service record has not survived.  It is not known how he travelled to England.  It is highly improbable that he could have afforded a trans-Atlantic passage;  he has not been found on passenger or crew lists.  However, stowaways were not uncommon in those days; perhaps he shared a similar experience to these stowaways, reported in the Liverpool Daily Post & Mercury on 30th April 1915:  

“On the principal that hanging a man is the worst use he can be put to, a benevolently-disposed person lately saved a group of delinquents from the punishment which they had legally incurred by representing that they might more profitably be drafted into the Army.  The offenders were four stowaways who had been discovered on an ocean steamer, and on arrival at Liverpool were about to be handed over to the police.  Learning of their impending fate, a gentleman well known on the Prince’s Landing Stage, suggested to a recruiting officer present that he should ask the men, all sturdy fellows, if they were “willing to fight for King George”.   All eagerly assented.  The gentleman thereupon interceded with those whose strict duty it was to deliver the culprits to justice, pointing out that if this course were followed the men would probably undergo a short term of imprisonment, and then be turned on to the streets, possibly to starve, whereas they might be turned into useful soldiers.  The plea prevailed, and within the hour our fighting forces were the richer by four stalwart recruits.”

Roland enlisted on 09th April 1915  joining the 18th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private 26076 and giving an unknown address in Brookfield, Massachusetts, USA. He would have been 18 years old, having to lie about his age in order to serve overseas. We can only hope that Roland enjoyed the closeness and comradeship in the battalion that he had been deprived of during his short life.

Just weeks after his enlistment on 30th April 1915 the 18th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. He arrived in France after 31st December 1915.

Roland was killed in action during the attack at Montauban on the 01^st July 1916.

18^th Battalion Diary

At 6.30am the artillery commenced an intensive bombardment of the enemy’s trenches. Zero Hour – 7.30 am – the battalion commenced to leave their trenches and the attack commenced. The attack was pressed with great spirit and determination in spite of heavy shelling and machine gun enfilade fire which caused casualties amounting to 2/3rds of the strength of the Battalion in action. The whole system of German trenches including the Glatz Redoubt was captured without any deviation from the scheduled programme. Consolidated positions and made strong points for defence against possible counter attacks. 

Graham Maddocks provides more detail concerning the events of the day:

As the first three waves began to move forward towards the German reserve line, known as Alt Trench and then on to the Glatz Redoubt itself, they suddenly came under enfilading fire from the left. This was from a machine gun which the Germans had sited at a strong point in Alt Trench. The gun itself was protected by a party of snipers and bombers, who, hidden in a rough hedge, were dug into a position in Alt Trench, at its junction with a communication trench known as Alt Alley. These bombers and snipers were themselves protected by rifle fire from another communication trench, Train Alley which snaked back up the high ground and into Montauban itself. The machine gun fire was devastating and it is certain that nearly all of the Battalion’s casualties that day were caused by that one gun.  

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Henry Trotter wrote in the conclusion of his account of the days action:

I cannot speak too highly of the gallantry of the Officers and men. The men amply repaid the care and kindness of their Company Officers, who have always tried to lead and not to drive. As laid down in my first lecture to the Battalion when formed, in the words of Prince Kraft:

“Men follow their Officers not from fear, but from love of the Regiment where everything had always and at all times gone well with them”.    

Joe Devereux in his book A Singular Day on the Somme gives the Casualty Breakdown for the 18^th Battalion as Killed in Action 7 Officers and 165 men and of those who died in consequence of the wounds 3 Officers and 19 men a total of 194 out of a total loss for the four Liverpool Pals Battalions of 257.

Roland has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme in France.

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916.

On 01st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

It is probable that no-one in New Brunswick or Massachusetts was aware he had enlisted in England and had fought and died in the Great War. 

The Medal Roll shows “died intestate, no next of kin”.  His Victory Medal and British War Medal were returned, unable to trace next of kin.

Soldiers’ Effects shows his Army effects of £3-14s-10d and a War Gratuity of £5 were not disbursed. Army form AFW 5070, requesting up to date details on surviving next of kin, was sent on 23rd June 1919, likely receiving no response.

In 1920 his father with wife Mary and son Oscar, 2, are living in Braintree Street, Boston.

By 1935 his father had moved to Connecticut. He died there in 1954 (his obituary giving his birthdate as 1873 and his age as 80), leaving a wife Mary and a son Oscar B.   His half brother Oscar registered for the draft in September 1942, as Oscar Bernard, living in Willimantic, Connecticut. 

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Roland is not found on any New Brunswick or Massachusetts memorial.

However, following our research Roland is now commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial and will be added to the Canadian Book of Remembrance in due time. 

Our sincere gratitude goes to Dan Hamilton in Brookfield, Caitlin Jones of the Massachusetts Archives, and Sheila Frankel of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.  Tracking down this soldier’s story would not have been possible without their efforts and generous assistance.