Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born in Lockport, Manitoba, Canada on 15th March 1890, James Stewart Swain was the son of farmer William Robert Swain and his wife Sarah Anne (nee Omand). At his birth there were already four children in the family, Sarah Margaret aged 11, Charlotte Ann aged 8, John aged 6 and Catherine Jane, aged 5, younger siblings still to follow were Emily, Alexander, Mary, William, Lawrence, Donald and lastly Stella born in 1906. The family were of Cree origin and part of the Canadian indigenous multicultural group, the Metis, and were descended from one of the earliest recorded families in Manitoba. The family were brought up on the land and worked on the family farm and as fishermen.

On 5th July 1915 James enlisted with the CEF in Brandon, Manitoba, becoming Private 425386 in the 45th Battalion; his parents at home in Lockhart were named as his next of kin and his occupation as that of labourer.

At some point James had met Wallsend girl Anne Hogg who had arrived in Canada on the SS Pomeranian in November 1912 seeking work as a domestic, and they married in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 17th February 1916 just four weeks before the 45th Battalion sailed for England. Anne remained working in Winnipeg as a domestic after their marriage.

James disembarked in Folkestone on 25th March 1916 and was posted to camp at Shorncliffe, Kent. In May he was posted to the 29th (Tobin’s Tigers) Battalion, part of the 6th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division and proceeded to France, joining them on 5th June at Dickebusch near Ypres, Belgium. Wounded in his right foot during fighting near St. Eloi on 14th August, Private Swain did not report his injury and remained on duty, but three weeks later with his wound infected he was admitted to a Casualty Clearing Station at Albert, transferred to hospital in Boulogne and then invalided sick to England aboard Hospital Ship St. David.

Initially admitted to hospital in Nottingham he was then transferred to King’s Cross Red Cross Hospital at Bushey Park and classified as fully fit by a Medical Board at Epsom on 16th October 1916, was attached to Shoreham Camp Reinforcing Depot. In January 1917 he returned to France and spent time with the 2nd Entrenching Battalion before rejoining the 29th Battalion at Le Pendu Huts, near Villers au Bois, on 5th March.

James received a slight wound in his right thigh at Vimy Ridge on 9th April 1917 and was admitted to 2nd Australian General Hospital at Wimereux, before again being invalided to England on a hospital ship. In hospital in Wandsworth, London, followed by convalescence in Bromley, he was discharged to duty in mid May and posted to the 1st Reserve Battalion at Seaford.

Returning to France in late September, he did not rejoin the 29th Battalion until December when they were in billets in the Chaudiere Sector. Promoted to Lance Corporal on 27th May 1918, James continued to fight on the front line and was wounded for a third time on 9th August at Thonville Wood, Amiens. Evacuated to 20th CCS at Vignacourt, he died of his wounds four days later.

Anne Swain returned to her parents in Wallsend in February 1919, returning to the USA in July 1920 and travelling onwards to Skagway, Alaska. She remarried and died in Seattle, Washington in 1935.

John Stewart Swain is remembered in Wallsend on W7.04 and W7.19 page 35

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance, and in Manitoba on Brandon Armoury Memorial Wall, in Winnipeg in Saint Andrew’s on the Red Anglican Church and on Selkirk War Memorial.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Corporal Swain