Diseases travel with people, and the Spanish flu is no exception. As hundreds of people packed onto ships to cross oceans, the vessels became incubators for the influenza virus. The USS Leviathan, the world’s largest ship at the time, departed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on September 29th, heading for Brest, Brittany. The voyage’s purpose was to transport American troops to the front line. Before the ship set sail, influenza spread rapidly through military camps. While most cases resulted in recovery, many unfortunate individuals died, often quickly and in terrible conditions. The crossing of the Leviathan was no exception. The first influenza cases appeared shortly after the ship departed. When the sick bay reached capacity, patients were laid out on the deck, fully exposed to the elements. Witnesses described how the decks became covered with phlegm and blood. By the time the Leviathan arrived in Brest on October 7th, over one hundred passengers had died, and many of their bodies were buried at sea. The Leviathan Tragedy was not uncommon during the second and deadliest wave of the Spanish flu pandemic on Atlantic crossings. William Nairn died while crossing the Atlantic to the UK aboard the Canadian HM Victoria on October 14th, at the age of twenty-nine. The on-board physician cited “broncho-pneumonia” as the cause of death. I consider him a Spanish flu fatality.
Blackford Churchyard sits atop a small hill on the village’s eastern edge. One can view the whole of Blackford, the nearby Ochil Hills, and the Allan Valley from the churchyard. Other than the occasional rattle of a train and the distant hum of traffic on the A9, the site is peaceful. William is commemorated in a familial memorial mounted onto the interior wall of the parish church ruin. The epitaph simply reads, “died at sea”. I am uncertain if William rests in the churchyard or if his remains were buried at sea.
William was born at Borland Farm, Blackford, on December 2nd 1887, the fifth child of George and Betsy (nee Gow). According to the 1891 Census, the Nairn family still resided at Borland and employed three servants. On May 18th 1894, William was admitted to Blackford Primary School to begin his education. By 1901, the Nairn family had grown with the birth of William’s sister, Jeanie. Tragically, his eldest brother James had died the year before, aged just twenty-two, after battling phthisis (tuberculosis) for five months. At age thirteen, William was still attending school.
William chose to pursue a career in finance instead of agriculture. He began as a clerk in a local bank before taking employment in Perth, then London, and eventually the Bank of Canada in Vancouver. In 1917, William was conscripted into the Canadian Machine Gun Corps. His Particulars of Recruit describe him as being five feet and a quarter inches tall, with blue eyes, fair hair, and complex. I could find no evidence of marriage or issue.
On November 16th, the Strathearn Herald published an acknowledgement from his family, thanking the community for their sympathy during their “sad and sudden bereavement”.
William is commemorated on Blackford’s War Memorial and the Halifax Memorial in Nova Scotia.
Sources: Ancestry, British Newspaper Archive, CWGC, Scotland’sPeople
Further Reading: Barry, J.M., The Great Influenza, The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, (Penguin, 2020).
Broken Columns 