In remembrance: George Philip Bothwell, 1887–1918

My paternal grandmother, Ellen “Nellie” Fraser Mitchell, had a first love long before she met my grandfather, marrying George Philip Bothwell in Scotland in 1914. But their union sadly ended less than four years later with her husband’s death in the First World War. His loss would significantly impact the future of an entire branch of my family tree.

George Bothwell was born 15 Nov 1887 in the city of Aberdeen, the eldest of 10 children of James Bothwell, a coach and carriage maker, and Ann Munro Webster. My grandmother, born 14 Sep 1893, was also one of 10, the second-born, and eldest daughter, of Joseph Clark Mitchell, a bottle sorter, and Helen Fraser. George and Nellie married in Aberdeen on 23 Oct 1914.

The Bothwell and Mitchell families resided in the same area of Aberdeen and for several years on the same street. From at least 1904 to 1912, the Mitchells lived on Kintore Place, first at #1 and later #8. In 1901, the Bothwell family was just a half mile away on Minister Lane but by 1906 had moved to 5 Kintore Place. With 20 children between them, the two families would likely have spent a good deal of time together and appear to have been quite close, evidenced by the fact that Joseph and Helen named their youngest son, born in 1910, George Bothwell Mitchell. Nellie was only 16 then, and still four years away from marrying the much-older George (then 22), but her parents obviously thought very highly of him—were George and Nellie already romantically attached?

George’s father died in 1908 and by 1911 his widow and children had relocated to Ashvale Place, just a mile away from the Mitchells. The census that year records George living in his mother’s household and employed as a pastry baker, while the teenaged Nellie was then working in a flax mill. By the time of their marriage in 1914, George was a journeyman baker. At this point, the war had already begun.

It is unknown exactly when George enlisted as his military record no longer exists. About two-thirds of WW1 soldiers’ service records, stored in a warehouse in London, were destroyed or severely damaged by enemy bombing during WW2. The service record of George’s brother James is among those that survived. He enlisted 18 Sep 1915 so it is possible George signed up around the same time, although they were in different branches of the military. George served in the Gordon Highlanders, 1st/7th Battalion, as a signaller, while James, a chauffeur in civilian life, was an ambulance driver in the Army Service Corps.

George was killed in action in France in July 1918, at the age of 30. Passing by in his ambulance the following day, James received the news of his brother’s death. Military burial records variously specify George’s death date as either the 22nd or 23rd of the month; his military headstone says the 23rd. But both the Bothwell family gravestone and newspaper death notice indicate the 22nd. George was posthumously awarded two campaign medals bestowed on all those who served in the armed forces during WW1: the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

George’s body was found at Épernay, France, and exhumed and reburied in La Neuville-Aux-Larris Military Cemetery, Marne, France, on 28 Nov 1919. (The cemetery was begun by French African troops in Jun 1918 and closed in mid-July; the British graves were brought in after the Armistice.) He is also commemorated on the Bothwell family gravestone in St. Peter’s Cemetery, Aberdeen.

Just over a year after George’s death, Nellie chose to begin a new chapter and set out for Canada, the first of her family to emigrate. Her parents and siblings followed over the next three years, as did three of George’s siblings. Would any of them have emigrated had she not paved the way? In an alternate universe, one in which George Bothwell survived the war, would they have remained in Scotland? George’s fate determined the future of so many others, indeed whether they would have even be born.