Name
John Hay Caldwell
9 Mar 1895
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
24/01/1918
23
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
Royal Flying Corps & Cameron Highlanders
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BAGHDAD (NORTH GATE) WAR CEMETERY
I. A. 9.
Iraq
Headstone Inscription
Attd Royal Flying Corps
UK & Other Memorials
Bengeo School Memorial – Location TBC, Britain School & University Memorial Rolls 1914-1918 (Eton), Capt A K French VC Chelsea Greater London, Squash Court Attached to Wotton House Eton College
Pre War
John Hay Caldwell was born 9th March 1894, in Edinburgh, Scotland, to parents William and Margaret (nee Watt), He had three sisters.
His father William Hay Caldwell was a well-known Cambridge zoologist who later in life owned a paper manufacturing company. The 1901 census has John living with his mother and sisters at Fodbank, Dunfermline, Fife.
He attended Bengeo School, Danesbury, Bengeo, Hertford and went on to Eton. John was a fine athlete and was a member of the Athletic Committee along with the Eton Society and the Scientific Society.
Whilst still at school in 1912 he was gazetted to the Lovat’s Scouts Yeomanry from the Eton College O.T.C., obtaining a commission as 2nd Lieutenant in 3rd Cameron Highlanders on 10th Jun 1914. He was posted to 3rd Bn which was a training and reserve unit.
Wartime Service
After the outbreak of war he was posted to 5th Bn on 28th August 1914. The unit moved around Scotland to Inverness, then Cromarty and Invergordon before moving to Birr in Ireland where it remained. He transferred to the RFC early in 1917. After training he was sent to the Middle East where his unit, 63rd Squadron, was stationed in Mesopotamia, which he joined on 23rd June 1917. He died, it is believed on 24th January 1918, after his SPAD S7 serial A8811 was forced to land behind Turkish lines on 12 Jan 1918. Somehow he avoided capture and he died from exhaustion and exposure while trying to escape back to the British lines.
Probate records show that he sometime resided at the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh and various places in Scotland. He left £269 15s 9d to his father William Hay Caldwell.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Ann Hacke, Terry & Glenis Collins
