Corporal Hugh Talbot Crosbie
Number: 30956
Company: 74th (Dublin) Company (New), 8th Battalion
ENLISTMENT
Date: 1 March 1901
Place: Curragh
Age: 29 years
Trade of calling: Building contractor
Place of birth: In the Parish of Ardfert, in or near the Town of Tralee, in the County of Kerry
Family: Single. Father Lindsey Bertie Talbot Crosbie, Naval officer, mother Anne Emily (nee Coke), of Ardfert, County Kerry.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 6' 1 1/4". Complexion fresh, eyes hazel, hair dark. H. T. C. tattooed on left forearm; star on right arm; scar on right knee; mole left shoulder.
Religion: Presbyterian
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 22 March 1901
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, 1901 clasps.
DEATH
Date: 27 July 1901
Place: Windsorton Road, South Africa
Cause: Wounds received near Elandslaagte on 25 July
Buried/ commemorated: Elandslaagte/ 74th Company Memorial, Dublin.
Details of the circumstances of Crosbie's death, in a clash near Elandslaagte, were reported in the Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail on 21 September 1901, in a letter home from another man of the 74th Company. The full letter can be seen here.
During this gallop we could hear the bullets whizzing all round us, but they only succeeded in hitting a corporal named Crosbie twice (in the stomach and in the lungs). ...
On the 27th we returned to Elandslaagte, where we had left our baggage and Infantry. Just as we came in sight of it poor Crosbie died. We buried him at 2 p.m. I was one of the firing party, and every one of our Company was at the funeral, as was every available man on the column. Major Paris, the commander of the column, read the Burial Service. One of our sergeants made an oak cross to place at the head of the grave, which was fenced in with wire paling. He was only 24 years old and belonged to Kerry, where his people own large estates. He was also the champion cyclist of Scotland.
Crosbie's probate records give his address as Whiteinch and 6 Park Grove Terrace, Sandyford, Glasgow.
Alfreton Journal, 23 August 1901
Kerry News, 6 August 1901
This page last updated 27 August 2024.