More about George Waugh

George Waugh was born on 1 April 1898 in the district of St Peter in the city of Dundee in Forfarshire, Scotland. Forfarshire was renamed as Angus in 1928. Dundee, a maritime city in the east of Scotland, is located on the River Tay as it flows into the North Sea.

George’s father was William Waugh, son of Patrick (weaver) and Agnes (Barr) Waugh, and was also born in Dundee. William was employed in the weaving industry, with occupation of calenderer as he operated a machine (a calender) with rollers that smoothed and flattened the fabric. William had married Alice Hendry in 1876 in Dundee. The 1891 Scotland census for William, living on Hunter Street in Dundee, listed family members of William, wife Ann (Alice?), and children Ann and William. By the 1901 census, the marriage or relationship had ended and William had moved to 8 Park Wynd in Dundee. (Alice later died in 1913 in Dundee). Listed in the census with William was Mary (Barron) Peterson, housekeeper/lodger, age 36. Mary had been married to Peter Peterson, merchant seaman but had separated around 1888. William and Mary had given birth to George in 1898. Other members in the household in 1901 were children Ann, William, Mary Jane, and Ellen.

George’s father William died in 1906 and the family unit disintegrated. By the 1911 Scotland census George was living in Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire. Along with Isabella Waugh, age 5, and another unrelated child named Robert, George, age 13, was listed as Parish Council boarder living with Margaret Stewart, widow age 54, and her son Charles, age 12. A later document cited Charles Stewart as George’s cousin.

Although a record was not found, according to his obituary George served with the Gordon Highlanders during WW1. However it is likely that he was Private S/25489 and served with the 4/5 (Angus and Dundee) Royal Highlanders out of Dundee, awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal for his service.

George immigrated to Canada at some point after the war. A passenger list for the Metagama that arrived in Quebec in late November of 1920 listed a George Waugh, age 22, as a passenger heading to Brantford, Ontario. By around 1922 George had ended up in Kenora, Ontario, working for WE Long on his farm on Round Lake in nearby Jaffray. When the farm was sold to the Department of Indian Affairs for construction of the Cecelia Jeffrey Residential School, George stayed on as a farm instructor. In 1927 George won first place in the Kenora Agricultural Society plowing competition. At some point George married Margaret Kathleen Jamieson, a teacher at the school. Born in 1907 in Brockville, Ontario, Margaret was the daughter of Peter and Bessie (Ross) Jamieson. It appears that George and Margaret gave birth to a daughter, Ruth.

On the morning of 14 September 1932, George had wakened some of the boys at the school to go and milk the cows. He was last seen as he headed to the barn. When it was found that George was missing, an extensive search was conducted, and with a rowboat found floating loose, his body was later recovered in Round Lake. A funeral service was conducted in the Presbyterian Church in Kenora, with the Kenora Branch of the Canadian Legion according full honours. C Stewart, a cousin living in Winnipeg, was listed as next of kin on George’s death record; Charles Stewart was one of the pallbearers at his funeral. George is interred in the Lake of the Woods Cemetery in Kenora. His original gravemarker gave his name as C Waugh, and year of death as 1930. It was replaced in 2015.

George’s wife Margaret later married Alton Muir and died in 1992 in Fernie, British Columbia.

By Kenora Great War Project