One day in the summer of 1915, a solider walked into Tain, in Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, and asked a local girl, Georgina Douglas, to marry him.
On the face of it, there is nothing remarkable about this, most proposals of marriage were accepted readily at face value in those days and extended periods of dating and consideration were not common.
He said his name was Alexander George Douglas and the couple were married in Dingwall in June that year. The marriage record shows him to be the son of George Douglas of the Scots Greys, and Agnes McUvany, and she the daughter of Isabella Graham and David Douglas.
He had signed up to the Cameron Highlanders in August 1914, barely four weeks after the beginning of the war and was apparently on leave before being posted to Europe. A few weeks later he left to join his regiment.
In July he went to his commanding officer and declared that he had signed up to the military using a false name. His attestation shows that he had joined the regiment under the name Archibald McUvany, but he now claimed that his real name was Alexander George McUvany Douglas. He provided no birth certificate to substantiate this, and his record was changed, following which his regiment were posted to France.
Joining the military using a false name was common practice. Most men were excited by the prospect of serving their country but there was always a concern that adventure might not meet expectations. An assumed name usually made it difficult to be traced in the event that the unlucky solder decided to desert at some point. There was also the issue of age. It is not widely acknowledged that this practice went on, but the absence of any requirement to produce identification made it easy for boys to enlist in the forces with no checks on age or status whatsoever.
In 1916, Georgina gave birth to a son, who she named George Douglas.
Early in 1917 Alexander returned to Tain, ostensibly on leave, to visit Georgina, accompanied by a young woman who he said was his sister, Nellie. Two days later he left to rejoin his regiment, leaving the two girls together, and this is where the story begins and the world starts to unravel for Alexander George McUvany Douglas.
On a chilly Saturday in the middle of December that year, Lord Anderson convenes the High Court in Edinburgh to hear a claim for divorce. Before him are two ‘attractive young ladies’, one holding a baby, and a handful of documents. After reading through the case Lord Anderson turns first to the hear the story from the girl with the baby, and then, after warning her that she is not obliged to answer any questions or elaborate on any details unless she is happy to do so, he asks for information form the other girl, who tells a very interesting story.
Her name was Ellie Gratton, known as Nellie, and works at the Volunteer Inn in Lyme Regis. The local schoolmistress was apt to throw parties, attended by many locals, including soldiers from the nearby military hospital. In summer she had met an injured soldier by the name of George Taylor, repatriated from the action in France for treatment. He had asked her to marry him, and she had accepted, producing a photograph of herself and the man taken by a local photographer which was noted in the court proceedings. Shortly after this he had asked her to accompany him to Tain, to visit his sister and had obtained a travel permit for her under the name of Miss Douglas. They had lived as man and wife during that time, including at hotels involving a break of journey on the trip.
After the man had departed Tain, the two ladies had talked and realised that ‘something was wrong’. The man, whatever his real name was, had told his wife Georgina that Nellie was his sister, and had also told Nellie that Georgina was his sister. Georgina said that the man’s name was really Andrew Inglis, of Motherwell and the court records imply that she had documentation to prove it.
Lord Anderson granted Georgina an unconditional divorce, stating that from that point on she could conduct her life and marry as if she were a single person.
Ten years later, in 1927, she did exactly that.
Alexander Douglas, as we will continue to call him, suffered several injuries in the Great War, being put out of action five times, recorded as absent without leave on many occasions, and was eventually discharged in later 1919 as ‘unfit for service’ due to injuries related to the displacement of his knee, and found himself in Yorkshire where he married a young widow by the name of Susan Pickering. They had two sons named George and Leslie (my father).
In 1924, Alexander was working for the Post Office while waiting for a reference from the military, but was sacked in 1925 after the reference was deemed to be unsatisfactory, mainly due to his absences. In a typed letter of complaint to the Home Office he stated that he may be forced to do ‘what many have done before him’ if they would not reconsider their recommendation. No reply was forthcoming and he was never heard from again.
In 1927 his wife Susan died of pneumonia, leaving their two children George and Leslie, orphans.
The historical record that we have over eleven years for ‘The Man from Tain’ leaves us with more questions than answers.
He enlisted as Archibald McUvany. There is no record of his birth, nor is there any record of persons fitting the names of his mother and father. His military record claims two brothers in Prestonpans as next-of-kin. There is no record of any persons matching the given names (or any other family names he used) in Prestonpans, or anywhere else. He proposed to Georgina Douglas claiming his name was George Douglas. I have yet to hear a better pickup line.
After years of fruitless research the existence of the court case created some hope. Both Georgina and Ellie had produced photographs and various documents which were referred in the accounts of the proceedings. The case was widely reported in various Scottish papers and was relatively easy to track down. Enquiries revealed that the paperwork had survived and was available at the National Records Office. Alas, the box contained only two fragile papers, neatly folded into three and tied with a ribbon. No supporting evidence. No photographs. I slid the ribbons off carefully while reminding myself that these documents had not seen the light of day for over a hundred years. They made interesting reading.
It was never made clear how obtaining a travel warrant for Nellie to visit Tain under the name of Miss Douglas failed to raise her suspicions if he had claimed to her his name was George Taylor, but Georgina did state that his name was really Andrew Inglis, son of John Inglis of 22 Queen Street, Motherwell. That was new information, but no indication was given as to how she had come to this conclusion.
Sadly, although as expected, this didn’t add up either. The only Andrew Inglis born anywhere at around the right time died as an infant, and there is no record of any John Inglis, or indeed any Inglis at all, in Queen Street. The area was home to A & J Inglis, the shipbuilders, but none of the details fit.
The 1921 census shows The Man From Tain living in Dewsbury with Susan and the two children, where he was employed as a boiler-fireman at “Ellis’s Chemical Works”, which were a major industrial employer in the 1920’s. He has stuck with George Douglas as a name, but a date of birth as 1886 which doesn’t agree with others, but claims he was born in Hong Kong. A & J Inglis had offices in Hong Kong and the harbourmaster was called Andrew Inglis, but that’s about all the connections that even remotely fit.
So who was he? Nothing he has ever said leads to even one concrete fact. Why did he feel the need to stay incognito for his entire life? Perhaps he was an orphan and didn’t know his name or date of birth. Perhaps at some point, he somehow came into possession of the birth certificate for the deceased infant by the name of Andrew Inglis. Without the benefit of modern search facilities it would be virtually impossible to determine that the child had died. There is a possibility that he may have emigrated, to Australia or to America, which were common destinations at the time for people seeking a new life. No passenger lists contain any of the names he was known to use, but then he almost certainly would have invented a new one. Just as there is no birth certificate for him, there is also no death certificate, at least not in any name that we know of.
My DNA analysis produces matches in Australia and America, but these are from Susan Pickering’s side of the family. No match has ever been traced to a name that is not related to her.
The Man From Tain appears in records for eleven years, from 1914 to 1925, using live different names.
Who he really was, where he came from, and where he went, will probably remain a mystery forever.