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Hillhead High School
ness, and moral strength, qualities that never fail to attract and hold young
people. His very austerity, lit up though it was from time to time by a rich
humour and a caustic wit, and his cloak of reserve, unveiled but rarely even to
his intimates, marked him out as a man apart. The obvious does not appeal
to pupils. Here was something of an enigma that baffled, yet attracted. But to
the simplest it was at least plain that here also was one who lived and worked
as ever in the Great Taskmaster's eye.
In March, 1915, Mr. Stewart applied for a commission, and in April was
gazetted to the 26th Northumberland Fusiliers, the Tyneside Irish. Those who
did not know Mr. Stewart well expressed surprise at his joining up so early.
He had been a lover of books from his youth up. He had taken little or no part
in games either as man or boy. War and strife were hateful to his well-ordered
views of life. All this they knew, but they did not know that he hated injustice
and unrighteousness still more, and held it to be not only a duty but a moral
necessity to kill the accursed thing. It mav be, too, as some of his friends think,
that under the austere robe of the schoolmaster there burned the soul of the
adventurer. His reading and his thinking had led him into the company of the
happy warriors, and he followed in their tread with as light a step and high a
heart as any paladin of old.
He proceeded to France in January, 1916, and had a long and trying experi-
ence in the trenches. In the great advance of 1st July, 1916, he was seriously
wounded in the head and arm, and was in hospital at home for some months.
At the beginning of 1917 he rejoined his regiment, and after a spell of light duty
he returned to the Front in March, 1917. He had not long been back with his
old battalion when he was promoted acting captain. His letters from the Front
were always bright and cheery, and the one written to his wife on the 5th June, the
day of his death, was no exception to the rule. In it, with his usual consideration,
he did not even say he was within the danger zone. The final scene may best be
told in the words of his commanding officer, " Your husband was out super-
intending the digging of a new trench across No Man's Land, and was killed by
a shell. The battalion can ill afford to lose such an officer, cool, quiet, brave
under all circumstances, with a wonderful devotion to duty, he was loved and
respected by us all; his thoughts were always for the good of those under him,
and it is small wonder that the men had such great trust and faith in him."
This is a striking tribute, and as true of Mr. Stewart, the teacher, as of Captain
Stewart, the soldier. As a colleague the headmaster would like to say of him
in addition that he never made difficulties, and he always saw opportunities.
In him he has lost not only a valued colleague, but a dear friend.
WALTER ROSS TAYLOR STEWART
Lieutenant 9th Batt. Princess Louise's (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders)
Lieutenant W. R. T. Stewart, youngest son of the late Mr. James Stewart
and of Mrs. Stewart, 13 Queen's Terrace, West, like all others who came from
distant countries to the help of the Motherland, deserves a specially generous
meed of praise. He was in Brazil, as representative of the United Machine
Cotton Company, Limited, when the great conflagration burst forth, but when-
ever he realised how imperative was the need for men, he came home to place
his services at the disposal of his country. He received a commission as lieu-
tenant in the 9th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and, with his athletic
frame and strong, resolute face, he looked every inch the part. After a period
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