| Description
| Engraved jug with the crest of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) upon the front, First World War. Slender, cylindrical jug fashioned from brass shell casing.With brass spout and a brass curving handle. Spout appears to have been welded or soldered on and the handle has been attached with small rivets. Parallelograms adorn the top rim of the jug. Designs have been etched on using a small chisel-headed implement as suggested by the zig-zag patterned outlines and also the straight lines of the mullet and bugle on the central crest motif. Above the badge of the Cameronians it reads "18831 | CPL MACDONALD | 11" and below the crest "SALONICA". The handle has a small 23mm or7/8" buckle and is engraved with a criss-cross pattern down the spine. The base of the shell has the production date "10 7 1915" stamped on it. The fuse cap is inscribed with "12/15" and "ALCO US" with the "US" enclosed in a circle, indicating that it was produced by the American Locomotive Co.
The jug's maker, Corporal Thomas Macdonald of the 11th Scottish Rifles, experienced numerous escapes and disappearances during the First World War - although perhaps not of the typical war hero variety.
A plumber from 43 Morrison St., Edinburgh, he was 19 when he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in April 1915. A day after being transferred to the 3rd Scottish Rifles in June 1915, he went AWOL for a week. In August he was sent to France with the 11th SR, suffering a gun shot wound to the left thigh and finger the following month. He recovered and went to the newly-opened Salonika front with the 11th SR in November 1915. 16 months later on 3rd March 1917, now 22 years of age, he was reported as AWOL from duty. Three weeks later, on the 24th of March he was apprehended by Military Police in his home city of Edinburgh. Somehow he had managed to escape across a continent at war and forged a railway ticket in the process to make it look as though he was on leave. For this he was punished with 22 days without pay and 28 days in a civilian prison.
In September of that year he was given 14 days of Field Punishment No.1 for insolence toward an officer. This involved being tied, standing, to an object such as a wheel for two hours a day. It was regarded as quite a humiliating punishment and for the offender an uncomfortable one too, being exposed to the elements and not having a hand free to scratch at the discomfort of lice.
A month later he was absent off parade, and perhaps because of this recurring aggravation in February 1918 he was transferred to the Labour Corps. He was appointed acting corporal in October, caught malaria and was demobilised in July 1919. He returned home to Edinburgh, to 48 St Mary's St, and from here what we know of his remarkable story ends. Years later the jug he crafted resurfaced in an antiques shop in Scarborough, where the donor bought it.
What became of Cpl Macdonald and how his trench art ended up in Yorkshire is not known. Even more of a mystery is how a young Edinburgh plumber managed to blag his way across war-torn Europe. |
