Cadder Cemetery lies north of Bishopbriggs. The Cemetery is located adjacent to the large and expanding Strathkelvin Retail Park. Although a small road physically separates them, the symbolic contrast between the two could not be starker. The juxtaposition between the silent solemnity of remembrance and the intoxicating allure of consumerism is intense. Thomas rests in a familial liar at the northern end of the old section. The headstone is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). Unfortunately, at the time of my first visit, some digits in the date of death were missing. Thomas died from pneumonia (likely attributed to influenza) on December 16, aged twenty-three, at the Mill Hospital, Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ireland.
Thomas was born in Auchinairn, West Cadder, Bishopbriggs in the former historic county of Lanarkshire, on February 8, 1896. He was the eldest child of Malcolm, an engine fitter and Sarah (nee Irwin). When the 1901 Census was taken, the Brown family resided at 102 Auchinairn Road, West Cadder. Thomas, aged five, was attending school. The family had expanded with the arrival of Robert in 1899. Tragically, Robert died from acute meningitis on August 11, 1906, aged only eight (seven on the headstone). He was the first to be interred in the family liar in Cadder Cemetery, which he would later share with his brother.
In 1911, the family still resided in West Cadder, though they had moved to 92 Auchinnairn Road. Thomas, aged fifteen, had left school and followed his father into the railway industry, where he served as an apprentice. By 1911, he also had two sisters: Sarah Jr. and Annie, aged eight and six, respectively. Sadly, more tragedy was on the horizon for the Brown family. On May 10, 1914, Sarah Sr died suddenly from a complication attributed to a long-term health condition. She was forty-four years old. She would join Robert in Cadder Cemetery.
Thomas served in the Lothian Regiment of the Royal Scots during the First World War, enlisting in 1915 at the age of nineteen. On April 17 1917, Thomas married Margaret Shaw in Springburn, Glasgow. Their son Malcolm was born on July 16, the following year, exactly five months before his father’s death; a cruel irony. As expected, Margaret was the beneficiary of Thomas’s army pension.
I am uncertain of what Margaret and Malcolm’s movements were after Thomas’s death. Given that she was still young, I expect she remarried and had more children with her new husband.
Malcolm (Sr) also remarried in 1917 to Agnes Duns Polwarth. She died on December 6, 1949, aged seventy, and was interred in the family lair in East Cadder Cemetery. Malcolm himself died three years later and joined his late wife and sons, predeceasing him.
Sources: Ancestry, Find a Grave, Scotland’s People
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