Places > Book of remembrance for Tweeddale > Burgh and Parish of Peebles

BURGH AND PARISH OF PEEBLES. 263
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1916 — November 13.
JAMES DUNCAN TODD was born in 1887. After the ordinary Board
School education he started work in the coal mines of Fifeshire. In
191 1 he emigrated to the United States of America, where he had
many ups and downs, such as usually fall to the lot of a stranger in a
strange land. At the end of three years (1914) he returned to
Fifeshire and again started work in the coal mines there. After the
outbreak of hostilities he enlisted in the 17th Black Watch, in the
month of September 1914.
After training at Kinghorn for some months, he was drafted to
France in April 191 5. He was in France one year when he got leave
of absence. Before returning to active service he married Isabella
Hunter, whom he met while in the U.S.A., but who, like himself,
hailed from Fifeshire. They were married before the Sheriff in
Edinburgh, and two days later, his leave being up, he again started
for France. Mrs Todd lives at 26 High Street, Peebles, with her
sister, Mrs George Mathieson.
In the meantime he had been raised to the rank of Corporal, which
he held until shortly before the first battle of the Somme. He was
then raised to the rank of Lance-Sergeant, which rank he held until
he was killed on 13th November 1916.
The following is an extract from a letter from one of Sergeant
Todd's comrades, relative to his death: — "On Monday morning, 13th
November, at 6 P.M., our Battalion went over the parapet near Beaumont
Hamel — to be exact, at the Y-Ravine. Jim, I'm sure, would be with
his platoon, and, as far as my information goes, he was going across
the open ground between the second and third lines of the captured
trenches when he was struck by a bullet from a machine-gun and
killed instantaneously."
Extract from a letter from Captain A. K. Watson - " When
Lieutenant Beatson wanted a sergeant it was Todd he chose, and when
he asked him if he would go over the top with him, without any
hesitation and with a smile, Todd answered — "Yes, sir." A first rate
fellow. It seems always the way. The good chaps go."
It might be interesting and worthy of note that the church he
attended while in America had a gold star embossed on the pulpit to
his memory, Sergeant Todd being the first who was known personally
to the members to fall in action in the Great War.