TOPIC:

This was originally a drinking fountain, and is in the High Street, Slamannan, near Falkirk, Stirlingshire. His surname was Peddie Waddell, as on the Falkirk ABW memorial it's given as Peddie-Waddell. Balquhatstone is the name of a large house, still standing, just outside Slamannan.

In Slamannan churchyard.



....We deeply regret to announce the death at Germiston, South Africa, of Trooper George Ralston Peddie Waddell, 19th Company Imperial Yeomanry. The only son of Mr. and Mrs. Peddie Waddell of Balquhatstone, Stirlingshire, he was educated at Glenalmond and New College, Oxford, where he took the degree of B.A. Endowed with exceptional physical strength, he was always devoted to athletic exercises of all kinds, and as a half-back player at Rugby football made a name for himself second to few in Scotland. George Peddie Waddell had finished serving his apprenticeship as a W.S. when he determined to join the 19th (Lothians and Berwickshire) Company of the Imperial Yeomanry on its formation rather more than a year ago. An excellent rifle shot - he was more than once at Bisley with the Glenalmond College eight - he had no difficulty on that score; and although not a practiced horseman, he succeeded, by an exercise of the pluck and endurance which he brought to bear on everything on which his heart was set, in qualifying within a few days for passing the necessary riding tests. He left for the front at the end of last February, and in South Africa had his full share of hard work and hard fighting - ill at times, hungry and ragged with the rest, but uncomplaining always. After taking part in the severe fighting in and around Frederikstad last autumn, he was invalided and given the chance of coming home, but he chose rather to go into hospital at Johannesburg in the hope of ultimately seeing the war through with his company. Last week there came a letter from him saying that he was convalescent, and looking forward to rejoining his men; on the following day a telegram announced his dangerous illness of enteric fever, and on the 8th inst. he died. Frank, fearless, generous, singularly attractive in all his ways, his friends were all who knew him; and not only to them, but to many others around Balquhatstone and elsewhere, to whom he was but a familiar figure - an embodiment of youthful health, strength, and spirits - his death brings the grief of a deep personal loss.
The Falkirk Herald and Midland Counties Journal, Saturday, February 16, 1901.

Tremendous find - many thanks.

HIS GRAVE IN GERMISTON PRIMROSE CEMETERY, SOUTH AFRICA.