I returned to Dundee’s Balgay Cemetery today. ‘Boy’ Albert Victor Patterson rests in a familial grave of Section C towards the eastern end of the cemetery. Albert succumbed to influenza and pneumonia on December 10 at the Alexandra Military Hospital, Westminster, aged seventeen (the headstone states eighteen).
Albert Victor Patterson was born on November 3 1901, at 23 Clepington Street, Dundee, to George, a Private Compositer, and Simone (nee Norrie). He was the couple’s second son and third child.
When the Census was taken in 1911, the family had relocated to 3 Court Street. Albert, aged nine, was attending school. The family had grown further with the arrival of Albert’s two younger sisters.
Albert was too young to enlist in the armed services when the First World War broke out. However, by December 1917, he had joined the Royal Air Force and held the rank of ‘Boy in the 25th Balloon Company. As the minimum age for conscription set by the 1916 Military Service Act was eighteen, Albert would have voluntarily enrolled in the Royal Air Force.
When Albert died, the family lived at 166 Perth Road. George and Simone would later relocate east to Carnoustie.
Source: Ancestry, Commonwealth War Grave Commission, General Register Office, Scotland’s People.
Broken Columns 