7th Battalion cap badge

jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born on 4th December 1896 whilst the family were living in Longbenton, Newcastle, Roland Elgie Bland was the third of the five children of Darlington born sanitary engineer William Elgie Bland and his wife Edith Mary (nee Cooper). He had two older brothers John Leslie, born 1892 and Thomas Noel born 1894 and then Brian Russell born in 1902 and Edith Mary in 1903.

After Roland had finished studying at Armstrong College in Newcastle, he along with his father and two older brothers set sail for Canada in April 1911, to be followed five months later by Edith and the two younger children (as a result of travelling at this time, his name appears on both the Canadian and UK 1911 Census). The family travelled overland and settled in Vancouver, British Columbia where father William became a consulting engineer for the Provincial Land and Financial Corporation, and was instrumental in setting up a Town Planning Commission in Vancouver.

Roland found work as a clerk and also became a volunteer with the 72nd (Seaforth Highlanders) Regiment, a local militia group. He tried several times to enlist, but was refused as being underage. Three months after his 18th birthday, on 12th March 1915, he enlisted with the 47th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force in New Westminster and was appointed to “C” Company as Private 429099. Assigned to the 2nd Reinforcement Draft he sailed with them on board the SS Missanabie from Montreal, arriving in Plymouth on 7th April, and a posting to the 30th Reserve Battalion at Shorncliffe Camp in Kent.

September 1915 saw him posted to the 7th (1st British Columbia) Battalion, part of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, 1st Canadian Division, and proceeded to join them in France at Zillebeke on 18th where he was assigned to the 12th Platoon. From joining the Battalion in 1915 Roland saw heavy fighting on the front line and it wasn’t until May 1918 that he was wounded in the neck during fighting at Fampoux, but remained on duty after treatment.

Two months later on 2nd September 1918 Private Roland Bland was killed in action during the attack on the Drocourt-Queant Line, the Circumstances of Casualty report reads “…about 100 yards in front of the “jumping-off” positions, and slightly in front of the Hendecourt-Dury Road, this soldier who was in command of a Lewis Machine Gun Section, in no.12 Platoon, was hit by an enemy machine gun bullet, in the groin, and almost instantly killed”.

Just before he enlisted in 1915 Private Bland is reported as saying “I am going as a private as I have a certain duty to perform, and I shall return as a private when it is all over”.

Robert Elgie Bland is remembered in Newcastle upon Tyne on NUT063

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Bland