PRIVATE WILLIAM ALEXANDER LOGAN
THE QUEEN'S ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT
10TH AUGUST 1918 AGE 20
BURIED: NINE ELMS BRITISH CEMETERY, WEST FLANDERS, BELGIUM
The words come from the chorus of a traditional Scottish Jacobite song, written some years after the 1745 rebellion by Lady Nairne (1766-1845) whose father, Laurence Oliphant, had been a leading supporter of the Young Pretender, Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
Will ye no' come back again?
Will ye no' come back again?
Better lo'ed ye canna be
Will ye no' come back again.
There's no evidence that William Logan's mother was still alive when the inscription was chosen. She's not mentioned in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records, but she's the one who came from Scotland, from Alva in Banffshire; the rest of the family were all born in or around London where William Logan Senior was a nurseryman.
Private Logan served with the 1st Battalion The Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment and died of wounds at a Casualty Clearing Station on 10 August. The Battalion had been in and out of the front line for the last two weeks in July. The War Diary regularly reported, without naming any names, casualties in the region of one or two every day. I assume one of these casualties must have been Logan.
Bonnie Charlie's noo awa
Safely o'er the friendly main
Mony a heart will break in twa
Should he ne'er come back again.