7th (Reserve) Battalion, Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders
James Fraser died in Cirencester and is buried there but that appears to be his only connection with the town.
No Army Service or Pension Record appears to have survived for James and research into his background is not helped by his having a relatively common name. However, gathering clues from such documentation that has survived or is available on Ancestry, it is possible to piece together some basic details, albeit these are laced with some conjecture.
Soldiers Died in the Great War states that James was born in, was a resident of and enlisted in Edinburgh. The CWGC Register states that he was aged 57 at the time of death. The BMD register shows a James Kerr Fraser born in Edinburgh in 1860 and the name does tie in with a marriage record. He was therefore more like 54 or 55, rather than 57, when he died.
On 28 November 1884 he married Margaret Simpson, at 21 Ravelston Park, Edinburgh. According to the marriage record he was a commercial and coal carter (or wagon driver) and his bride a domestic servant. There were five children from the marriage, born between 1886 and 1897.
It appears highly likely that James Fraser had joined the Army Special Reserve (SR) at some point prior to the start of the Great War. This had been formed in 1908 and had superseded the Militia and men usually signed on for six years’ service, undergoing six months’ basic military training before reverting to civilian life, whilst undergoing three to four weeks annual training. Men were attached to regular Army regiments, by way of a 3rd Battalion and the prefix ‘3’, as in this instance, indicated a SR man.
If James had joined the SR in, say 1909, he would have been 49 and would have been mobilised at the start of the war. Although the SR was principally employed to guard UK based installations, it also trained men for front line service. It seems likely that as SR man, with certain military training, James was promoted to Corporal when war broke out to help remedy the dearth of NCO’s needed to train up the flood of volunteers.
If James was posted to the 7th (Reserve) Battalion of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders at the start of the war, he would initially have been based in Inverness and then moved to Aldershot in January 1915, the battalion becoming part of 44 Brigade, 15 Division. They were then sent to billets in Liphook, Hampshire and then, in February 1915 into billets at Cirencester.
A report of his military funeral appeared in the Gloucestershire Echo of 26 February 1915. Evidently, he died suddenly on the day his battalion arrived in Cirencester and had belonged to ‘D’ Company. His wife and a son had travelled overnight to attend the funeral.
Corporal James Fraser died on 23 February 1915. According to a recently released Pension Record Card, the cause of death was ‘apoplexy’ (a cerebral haemorrhage or stroke). The card also gives his wife’s date of birth as 8 July 1860, which can be cross referenced with BMD records. According to the Register of Soldiers’ Effects, held at the National Army Museum, he was not entitled to any gratuity for his war service, which indicates he had served under six months.
Corporal James (Kerr) Fraser was buried in Cirencester (Chesterton) Cemetery with full military honours on 26 February 1915 and a standard CWGC headstone now marks his grave. The CWGC Register notes that his widow lived at 17 Upper Grove Place, Edinburgh: evidently, she lived until 1937.
Researched by Graham Adams 24 April 2021