Roll of Honour
Captain
Thomas Pretsell Finlay
Student
Thomas Pretsell Finlay was a native of Bonnybridge, born in 1887 to Isabella (nee Pretsell) and Robert. He grew up at Blackwell Farm with his three sisters, Bella, Agnes and Mary and attended Greenhill Public School. In the autumn of 1910, he went up to the University of Glasgow to study medicine. At this time he was twenty four years old. His father, Robert, was a mineral borer, but had died before Thomas started his course. While studying, he stayed in lodgings at 62 Gleneagles Cottages, Scotstoun, and at 39 Caird Drive, Partickhill.
Thomas struggled with his medical studies, but he passed his First Professional exam in March 1912, the first step towards the degree of MB ChB. He sat his Second Professional Exams in Anatomy, Physiology and Materia Medica in October 1913 but did not pass.
Events were to intervene. War broke out. He put his studies on hold and joined up. He had been a member of the University OTC and in 1914 joined the 4th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. No doubt he intended to return to Glasgow to complete his remaining professional exams after the war, but it was not to be.
He served in Flanders, and was promoted first to Lieutenant and then Captain. He was attached to the Gordon Highlanders, to which he had been transferred, when he was killed by a sniper at Loos on 25th September 1915, while leading his men into action. Captain Thomas Pretsell Finlay was 28. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Memorial Wall at Loos.