edinburgh

This is 18 -28 West Richmond street.

The Castle is, of course, still there: Streetview

The Black Bull is still at Number 12!

The Grassmarket

The Grassmarket site says: With a drinks license thought to have existed since it was a 16th Century coaching inn, the present building replaced The Beehive Hotel in the 1860's. A close look at streetview gives a date of 1868 for the building which replaced numbers 18 and 20.

Niall McAuley So 1863-1868 then? Brilliant narrowing down...

Second Lieutenant James Hope Byres was killed during the third Battle of Ypres - Passchendaele. There is an excellent diary of this period, available on-line, by an officer with 11th Argyll's, (in the same Brigade as 13th Royal Scots), Lieutenant Robert Lindsay Mackay MC and Bar. In the churned moonscape of the Passchendaele battlefield, having been defending opposite the German positions parallel to the Frenzenburg - Beck House Road, 13th Royal Scots, exhausted, cold and saturated with mud, came out of the front line on the night on 23rd August and were entrained back to 'recover' at Toronto Farm, beyond the range of German guns. However on 25th August the Battalion was ordered up to the line again, for a 'raid' on Beck House and Borry Farm - heavily reinforced defensive buildings, concealing concrete blockhouses, impregnable to artillery fire, against which several attacks had bloodily foundered in the mud and barbed wire. German snipers were active everywhere along the front and made even the slightest exposure from any angle extremely perilous. Second Lieutenant Byres was sniped during that intensely dangerous period, the first days at the front when an unwary officer might be most vulnerable - before picking up a battlewise, sixth sense and prudent trench behaviour. The Mackay diary is at www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/rlm4.htm Robert Lindsay Mackay says of the planned raid: "The idea of sending men in such a state as our brigade was in - for the third time in three weeks - was preposterous. Fortunately the weather broke completely, and the scheme fizzled out, but the Brigade had a disagreeable three days the 27th. to 29th. Bn. came back to Toronto on the 30th." //

The database of UK Soldiers Killed in the Great War shows his rank as Temporary 2nd Lieutenant Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment), Battalion not shown. In the Comments section there is a note "Att 13/B". The National Probate calendar shows his address as 14 Strathearn Road, Edinburgh. Confirmation of death by George Byres, Accountant.

1901 census shows him as a 9 year old scholar living with his family at 16 Shandon Crescent, Edinburgh. He had an older brother, George aged 11 and a younger one, Evan aged 5.

George Moir Byres was a Captain in the 4th Royal Scots according to his MIC and appears to have survived the war. He is listed in telephone directories until 1977. Addresses in Edinburgh shown on his MIC as 2 St Ninian's Terrace and 8 York Place.

Help piece together the Life Stories of more than 8 million men and women who made a contribution during the First World War at www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/