William Cassels Buchanan
ID # 4194, (1890-1915)
| Father | John Buchanan (1859-1945) |
| Mother | Mary Mackay (1864-1933) |
| Birth | William Cassels Buchanan was born on 21 February 1890 at Indore, India. |
| Death | He died on 31 July 1915 at Cliveden, Taplow, Bucks., England, at age 25. |
| Burial | He was buried at St. Nicholas Churchyard, Taplow, Bucks., England. |
| Note | Cassels died while serving with the Canadian Army in England during the First World War. Library & Archives Canada provides a digitized version of Cassels' army file and shows that he suffered from a sarcoma of the knee which resulted in amputation. The condition was the result of falls suffered, beginning with one he suffered on the wet deck of the R.M.S. New Zealand. Thereafter, he suffered knee pain. This was compounded when he had to leap from falling scaffolding to save himself. His condition deteriorated and he was found to have a pulmonary sarcoma from which he died on July 31, 1915. At the time, he was in the Duchess of Connaught Hospital in Taplow, Buckinghamshire. Cassels was engaged to marry Grace Jeffrey. Grace and his sister Ruth went to England to be with him, but they arrived the day after his death. According to a news article, Cassels was buried with full military honours. The date is not given, but his medical file indicates that his body was to be released for burial 48 hours after his death. In 1921, Grace Jeffrey married Norman Miller at Ottawa and had a family. Cassels' sisters Ruth and Edith Buchanan remained in contact with her for many years. A note here with regard to the name 'Cassels'. This was never explained within the family, or at least not in a manner that was relayed to later generations. The source is made clear enough, however, for the name of a Toronto lawyer, Hamilton Cassels, appears in the book New Women for God, Canadian Presbyterian Women and India Missions, 1876-1914, by Ruth Compton Brouwer, University of Toronto Press, 1990. Ms. Brouwer makes several references to Hamilton Cassels in the course of her work. Page 24 tells that he served on the Presbyterian Church's foreign mission committee for several decades. We must believe that Cassels Buchanan was named after this gentleman. After his sister Edith returned to Canada, she explained to family members that Cassels' father had called him Willie. He almost certainly received his first name from his grandfather, William Buchanan. The family in Canada, however, called him Cassels. Edith recalled visiting with Cassels when she was a child and he was a student at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. He took her to a playground and she had a happy time while he pushed her on a swing. |
| Last Edited | 20 Apr 2020 |