Additional information and photographs
Tom Peel received a 'Kitchener' commission in the Black Watch on
5 September 1916. He was posted to the 2nd Battalion on 11
April 1917 and very soon afterwards took part in the operations for
the consolidation of Baghdad. He was wounded on the first day
of the Istabulat action (described in A History of the Black
Watch in the Great War, ed A G Wauchope, Vol II, page 341) and
died shortly afterwards of his wounds.
From an article in The Scotsman of 25 April 1917 comes the
following additional background:
Information was received at Maryport yesterday that Lieutenant
Tom Peel had died of wounds in Mesopotamia. On leaving school
he became a clerk on Maryport and Carlisle Railway. Later,
when a trooper of the Westmoreland and Cumberland Yeomanry, he
passed a Civil Service examination and subsequently obtained a
commission. He was 23 years of age.
We are grateful to the Archivist at The Black Watch (Royal
Highland Regiment) for providing this information in May 2003.
As a member of the Board's Labour Department, Tom Peel is also commemorated on the Memorial to the Staff of the Ministry of
Labour, which now hangs in Caxton House,
Tothill Street, London SW1.
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