Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine 2021

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine Expeditionary Force (CEF) and 21 fatalities were recorded. This loss represented about 8.6 percent of all FPs killed and noticeably diminished the population of FPs living in Canada who numbered in the low hundreds at the outbreak of hostilities. Moreover, when viewed from the perspective that a number of FPs who survived the conflict did not return to Canada (possibly as many as 14) and that the FP migration momentum of pre-War days was severely blunted (perhaps 100 FPs came to Canada in the period 1914-45), the cumulative impact of war upon a young Canada from this one Scottish school was notable.

Robert Combe was of that cohort of FPs who, motivated by opportunity and adventure, came to Canada in considerable numbers in the quarter-century prior to WWI. Combe’s first step upon leaving the School was not dissimilar to that of other FPs who chose to gain experience through local apprenticeships or similar means prior to their emigration. A number were apprenticed to local engineering firms, for example Robert first attended Ferryhill School and then the Grammar, and was subsequently apprenticed to be a chemist with William E. Hay in Aberdeen and received further training in his chosen profession in London. In 1906 (some sources say 1907) he moved to Canada and found employment in a drug store in Moosomin, Saskatchewan, and later set up his own business in Melville. He married Jean Traquair Donald of Scottish descent in August 1909 and enlisted at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, with the CEF on 1 April, 1915.

Thereafter he was in Britain and France with various Canadian units until his death between Acheville and Fresnoy near Vimy Ridge.

Just as Combe found opportunity to pursue a career as a chemist on the prairies, so were other FPs attracted (or recruited) to careers throughout Canada with such as the Canadian Bank of Commerce, Canadian Pacific Railway and Hudson’s Bay Company, or through personal endeavour in urban business, farming or fruit growing, mining and medicine. Cross-country railway tours by visiting FPs such as William McCombie Alexander (1887-96) in 1912 and Canadian FPs’ correspondence with the Editor of the Magazine brought evidence of FP omnipresence from Halifax to Victoria, and stretching northwards to include those who were participating in the fur trade.

I have been gathering information on FPs in Canada and my interest, in part, has been drawn to those who served with British regiments and who are unaccounted for in statistics about Canadian FPs. While conceding that my data are incomplete what has been assembled to date broadens our appreciation of the overall contribution by Canadian FPs. Also to be noted is that the vast majority re-crossed the Atlantic to the European theatre of war; very few served in Canada alone. Some instances follow of those who served with British units. Robert Smith Asher (1898-1903) first worked as an engineer with William Jackson of Aberdeen and then moved to Weyburn, Saskatchewan, as Assistant City Engineer. He returned to Britain and served there and in France for five years with the Royal Engineers. Asher subsequently worked with the City of Edinburgh 38