Do you own a photo of Private James Ross MacPherson from Corne Mills, Nova Scotia, who served with the 193rd Canadian Expenditionary Force?
John Hurst in London, England is looking for a photo of this Canadian serviceman who lost his sight in the Halifax Explosion on December 6, 1917. Mr. Hurst is a volunteer at the charity, Blind Veterans UK.
Since 1915, Blind Veterans UK has been caring for servicemen and women blinded in conflict.
Mr. Hurst is working on a long-term project — The Historical Photography Project. The Blink Veterans UK archives have thousands of photographs and records of the men and women whom they have looked after, from the original St. Dunstan’s Hostel till now. (If these photos are on the website, they are difficult to find.)
The task is to help identify these people, essentially putting names to the faces of those who served in the First World War.
Mr. Hurst needs the public’s help in the case of Private MacPherson, who was born on November 29, 1895, served in the 193rd Canadian Expeditionary Force (service number 902152), and enlisted March 11, 1916.
In what a letter to the editor of the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Mr. Hurst writes about Private MacPherson:
“On the day of the Explosion, he was working in a building about half a mile away. The force of the blast destroyed the building and he was blinded. He arrived at St. Dunstan’s in London on Sept. 25, 1918, where he joined many other Canadian servicemen who’d been blinded fighting in Europe, e.g. at The Somme and Passchendaele. He was rehabilitated and retrained and he left us on July 8, 1920, to return to Canada with his wife (a Miss Carman, whom he married on 10 April, 1920). We do not know much more about Pte. MacPherson other than he moved to B.C. in mid-1921 and died on Feb. 9, 1966.”
