{"id":2417,"date":"2026-07-09T23:15:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/?p=2417"},"modified":"2026-07-10T15:52:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T05:52:41","slug":"tracing-the-path-of-my-gt-grandfather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/2026\/07\/09\/tracing-the-path-of-my-gt-grandfather\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracing the path of my gt grandfather’s family"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading Siegfried Sassoon’s memoirs and in particular his descriptions of the front line around the time of the battle of the Somme, which are fantastic for their sensitivity and the way he captures the sunsets and the birds and notices things in the same way that i feel i would have noticed them had i been there.\u00a0 My great grandfather, Andrew Watt, actually was there on the Somme. He was from Pumpherston, near Edinburgh, and was enlisted in January 1915 into the 17th Northern (Scottish) Division, 78th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, on one of the 18 pounders of the C Battery. One of the great things is that the brigade diaries are available from the National Archives (WO-95-1991-3), so i can actually follow his movements through the western front day by day. They reached the front in July 1915, and were in Ypres by December. Then in March 1916 they moved again, spent some time in armentiers (a quiet area) and then up to the Somme, arriving at Fricourt in late June and participating in the bombardment that preceded the battle of the Somme on 1 July, which is documented so sensitively by Sassoon.<\/p>\n

Because the diary lists grid references, it is possible using the old maps<\/a>, to work out exactly where the 78th brigade had set up their guns. And then using google streetmap view i can look at the exact spots, typically unremarkable now, but still helpful for imagining how it was. For instance, for that bombardment they made in late June, the diary records it at map 62D<\/a>, grid reference E24a which was this field<\/a> (roughly):<\/p>\n

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Then after the offensive had moved the line forward a bit, they moved to the outskirts of Fricourt and first of all did some wire cutting, then got back to barraging areas on the other side of the village and Fricourt wood. Here’s the diary page for the first five days of July:<\/p>\n

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78th division diary covering the first few days of the Somme offensive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the 3rd they barraged ‘quadrangle trench’ which Sassoon went up i think a few days later. My Gt Grandfather had been a ‘driver’ with the horses for the first few months of the war but became a gunner in May 1916 just before the Somme so he was operating one of the guns then. This ‘broadsides’ blog entry<\/a> shares some photos of the guns of the 78th Brigade (although taken about a year later at Arras) showing the blasted landscapes, piles of spent cartridges, horses and rows of men weaving through it all. My grandfather did not make it to Arras though, for at the end of October he was sent home to London, apparently suffering from gas attacks on the front lines around Grandcourt, and spent three months in the hospitals in Chelsea and then Holborn (Mitcham) recovering from the lung damage (recorded as ‘Pleurisy’). He was extremely lucky to get away from the front before winter and he missed the battle of Arras where many of his brigade (including the relative of the person who writes the broadsides blog) died. But his lungs were always weak after that – in fact, the family moved to Australia after the war on doctors advice because his weak lungs were no good in the cold Edinburgh climate. Weak lungs is a bit of a family trait i think i can say – my grandfather and dad and i also have them.<\/p>\n

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One of the artillery batteries of the 78th Div in 1917.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve mentioned elsewhere<\/a> about how in the later stages of the war he was sent to Mesopotamia and was in India by July 1917 – and he loved india, wanted to return there to work after the war was over. He apparently drove steam trains but unfortunately i can’t yet find any records of where he was exactly, which is a shame as i’d love to know if we were ever in the same places. During these movements he got caught on ships that were torpedoed a couple of times – he survived each time – not by swimming but by staying on the sinking boat till help arrived. Some of those who tried to swim got sucked under. At the end of the war he returned to France briefly and unfortunately caught the spanish flu which messed his lungs up even more. He’s lucky to have survived the war.<\/p>\n

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My great auntie Marion (Maisie), My Gt Grandfather Andrew, and my Gt Grandmother Janet, in 1915 not long before Andrew went to the western front. Thanks to my 2nd cousin Sandra for sending me this photo and doing a lot of useful ancestry research into the family.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I never met my great grandad who lived in Sydney till 1960 – he died possibly from lead or arsenic poisoning as he worked in a paint factory and used to chew matches which apparently transferred the chemicals into his mouth.\u00a0 My dad who was born in 1952 remembers him, Andrew used to encourage him to hop through the fence at the back of their property in Burwood onto a coke depot to pick up pieces for the fire. I do remember my grandmother Janet though, who i visited in the mid 80s. She also was on the western front apparently driving an ambulance but we can’t find any records about that. She was a nice old lady and i remember sitting on her lap in her garden in Batemans bay where she lived with gt auntie Maisie. I also remember her visiting my grandparents house and she had two walking sticks and seemed very small. Everyone remembers that she had a strong Scottish accent. She lived until she was 94. Later when i spent time in Edinburgh I’d often think of them, and my grandad who grew up around Cowgate below the castle. Janet worked with her sister Bell at Spylaw Bank, Colinton as cook and maid for the Lord and lady Douglas. That’s where she met my great grandfather. My grandfather wrote about all this in his memoirs and although they are incompletely transcribed i should put the copy I have up here sometime. Anyway that’s enough for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading Siegfried Sassoon’s memoirs and in particular his descriptions of the front line around the time of the battle of the Somme, which are fantastic for their sensitivity and the way he captures the sunsets and the birds and notices things in the same way that i feel i would have noticed them … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memoir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2417"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2435,"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417\/revisions\/2435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forkword.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}