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| John Macmillan Schoolhouse, Shawbost |
(Barvas Park, Lower Barvas, Upper Barvas and Brue.)
Population last Census, 691 (Males, 339; Females, 352).
IT is with mingled feelings of sorrow and pride that we recall the years which have passed since that August morning when the peace of the Sabbath was so rudely disturbed by the distribution of mobilisation notices—forerunners of many anxious days to come: sorrow when we remember the comrades of our youth and those of a later day who were to us as children, and are now numbered with the dead, and pride when we recollect how the traits which we admired in those and the qualities we sought to develop in these bore such splendid fruit in the day of a nation's trial.
Like the rest of the Lewis villages Barvas and Brue were drained of the major portion of their manhood in the first week of the war, and very soon afterwards the inhabitants were made poignantly aware of the fact that war is no children's game by the news of the death in action on the 15th September of Pte. Angus Paterson, a boy of seventeen, who had joined the army in the previous year. Next month came the fall of Antwerp in which nine of our men were involved, and of whom five were interned in Holland, while the other four suffered the privations of four years' internment in Germany.
One of the Brue lads was lost in the blowing up of H.M.S. Bulwark in November, and in December Norman Matheson, Lower Barvas, and Sergt. Donald Allan Finlayson, Brue, were killed in France— the latter had joined his Majesty's Forces before he was sixteen years of age—so that within four months of the declaration of war quite an appreciable percentage of the young men of the district had given their lives in the world fight for freedom.
The loss of the Viknor in the early part of 1915 opened up anew the sores of the previous year, and in April came word of the death in action of Pte. Alex. Hunter, the first to fall of that gallant band of our young men who, in the far North-West, heard the call of the Mother Country, and rushed to aid her
in her sore distress.
The year 1916 was a disastrous one for these dauntless heroes of the prairie and in the autumn of that year fell Kenneth Maclean, Colin Smith and Neil Murray, the latter of whom had crossed to France with the first contingent of Princess Patricia's Light Infantry in 1914.
By the end of the following year practically all of the young men of the district who were connected with the Cameron Highlanders had either fallen in action or were discharged unfit, and the fact that one of their number, Sergt. Donald Macleod, 1 Upper Barvas, was awarded the D.C.M. testifies to the gallantry with which they upheld the glorious traditions of that famous regiment.
The final year of the war further depleted the number of those who came over from Canada, and, with the death in action of Ptes. Norman Macdougall and Norman Macleod, forty per cent, of their number had fallen. In this year also fell that promising and brilliant young student, Sergt. Finlay Maciver, and Sergt. Allan J. Morrison who had taken part in all the principal engagements of the war, had been twice wounded and had been awarded the D.C.M., was reported missing on the 11th April. It afterwards transpired that he had been left on the field suffering from twelve bullet wounds. He had accounted for many a Hun and they had their revenge at last.
In all the principal sea fights the men of this district took a part ; they helped to sink the Cap Trafalgar, to destroy Von Spee's squadron off the Falklands, and at the battle of Jutland two of them went down with the Invincible. The following awards for bravery testify to excellent behaviour in action : —
The Serbian gold medal was awarded by the Sovereign of that gallant little nation to Gunner Donald Mackay, 9 Upper Barvas, Ross Mountain Battery.
The Military Medal was awarded to Pte. Colin Macdonald, 2 Brue (Seaforths), who single-handed captured eleven Germans and worked a Lewis gun until it was knocked out by a German shell.
Sergt. Donald Macleod, 1 Upper Barvas, Camerons, won the D.C.M. for conspicuous bravery in action, and Sergt. Allan J. Morrison (Seaforths) the D.C.M. for conspicuous gallantry in refusing to surrender his platoon, and subsequently taking them safely out of what appeared a hopeless situation.
From the village of Brue in which there are twenty-eight crofts fifty-seven men were on active service, or an average of two men from each croft—a fact well worth noting by our future politicians. Forty-two per cent, of the male population of the whole district served and of these twenty-one per cent, gave their lives—trulv an honourable record for a people whose love of peace and order is exceeded only by their love of justice and freedom.
JOHN MACMILLAN.
Schoolhouse, Shawbost.
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