Personal Details | |
Date of Birth | August 13, 1892 |
Place of Birth | Edinburgh |
Country | Scotland |
Marital Status | Single |
Next of Kin | James Watson, father, 14 University Avenue, Glasgow, Scotland |
Trade / Calling | Bank Clerk |
Religion | Presbyterian |
Service Details | |
Regimental Number | 72056 |
Service Record | Link to Service Record |
Battalion | 27th Battalion |
Force | Canadian Expeditionary Force |
Branch | Canadian Infantry |
Enlisted / Conscripted | Enlisted |
Place of Enlistment | Winnipeg, Manitoba |
Date of Enlistment | October 24, 1914 |
Age at Enlistment | 22 |
Theatre of Service | Europe |
Prisoner of War | No |
Survived War | No |
Death Details | |
Date of Death | April 24, 1917 |
Age at Death | 24 |
Buried At | Arras Memorial |
Norman Campion Watson was born on 13 August 1892 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father James Watson, a bank clerk, was from Lanark while his mother Margaret Yule Campion was from Edinburgh. The couple married on 5 September 1878 in Edinburgh. Known children born to James and Margaret were Edith Jane (1879), Margaret Lindsay (1882), James Cecil Russell (1886), Norman, and Elizabeth Campion (1900). At the time of the 1881 and 1891 censuses the family was living in Edinburgh but by the birth of daughter Elizabeth in 1900 they had moved across the river to Burntisland in Fife. By the 1911 census they were living in Glasgow where Norman was working as a shipping clerk. At some point after the census Norman immigrated to Canada.
With occupation given as bank clerk and his father James back in Scotland as next of kin, Norman signed his attestation papers with the 27th Battalion on 25 October 1914 in Winnipeg. According to a later Kenora Miner and News report of 24 November 1915, he was listed as one of the Kenora fellows with the 27th Battalion overseas. He had likely been working at the Bank of Commerce in Kenora. On attestation he gave previous military service as 3 1/2 years with the Highland Light Infantry. Appointed Lance Corporal in March of 1915, he embarked for overseas with the battalion aboard the Carpathia on 17 May 1915. By September 1915, the battalion was in France. In December of 1916 Norman was appointed a commission with the Imperial Army. On 24 April 1917, as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 6th Battalion, Highland Light Infantry, Norman was reported as killed in action.
Norman is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, a World War I memorial in France located in the Faubourg d’Amiens British Cemetery in the western part of the town of Arras. The memorial commemorates 35,942 soldiers of the forces of the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand, with no known grave, who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918. Norman is also commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, on page 582 of the First World War Book of Remembrance housed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa, and on the city of Glasgow Roll of Honour.
By Judy Thorburn