Richardson, Private James Monilaw

Service highlights

  • Service number: 100713
  • Born: 2 September 1886, Seaforth
  • Arrived in St. Marys: 1904
  • Work and life before the war: clerk with the Merchant Bank of Stratford
  • Militia service: 19th Alberta Dragoons
  • Enlisted: 5 July 1915 at Edmonton with the 66th Canadian Infantry Battalion
  • Posted to France: joined the 31st Canadian Infantry Battalion, arriving 14 July 1916 after time at the Canadian General Base Depot at Le Havre
  • Hospitalized: admitted 30 July 1916 with mumps, returned 6 August 1916
  • Died: 15 September 1916,
  • Commemoration: no known grave, commemorated on the Vimy Memorial and on the St. Marys cenotaph
  • Family: mother Euphemia died in 1908, survived by his father John Knox Richardson of St. Marys and his sister Kate, then studying at the Macdonald Institute in Guelph

A Life and Service Remembered

James Monilaws Richardson was born in Seaforth and came to St. Marys as a teenager, arriving in 1904 when his father, John Knox Richardson, became manager of the J.D. Moore Company. The family settled into a large house at 109 Wellington Street North, near the Presbyterian Church. It is easy to picture that part of town, familiar sidewalks, familiar doors, and a life built around work and family routines.

Before the war, James followed a path that spoke to ambition and effort. He worked as a clerk with the Merchant Bank of Stratford, then headed west to homestead in Alberta for three years. After that, he joined the Royal Bank at Peace River Crossing. He also served with a local militia unit, the 19th Alberta Dragoons, so military life was not entirely new to him when the world shifted in 1914.

He enlisted in Edmonton in July 1915 with the 66th Battalion and sailed overseas the next spring on the RMS Olympic. At one point he was promoted to corporal, then chose to give up that rank so he could get to France sooner. That decision reads as plain determination. He wanted to be where the war was being fought, not kept back in the long machinery of training and reinforcement.

By September 1916, his battalion was on the Somme, moving into trenches near Pozieres and then into the fighting west and southwest of Courcelette. On 15 September, the 31st Battalion’s role was to support the attacking units, moving forward to clear trenches and strongpoints that had been bypassed. As the battalion advanced along the Bapaume Road toward the sugar factory and through trenches known as Taffy, Sugar, and Candy, James was killed by enemy machine gun fire.

Whether he was buried by comrades in the chaos of that battle remains uncertain. After the war his body was not recovered, and his name was carried instead onto the Vimy Memorial. At home, it would have been a different kind of grief, the ache of no grave to visit, only a name carved in stone and remembered in the town that watched him grow up.

Major battles and operations

  • Western Front service with the 31st Canadian Infantry Battalion, summer 1916
  • The Somme, September 1916, including the actions around Pozieres and Courcelette
  • 15 September 1916 operations west and southwest of Courcelette, supporting the assault by clearing trenches and strongpoints, where he was killed

Learn More

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/616999
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/1573500/james-monilaws-richardson/
https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/lifestory/6077731
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/53639750/james-monilaws-richardson
https://canadiangreatwarproject.com/person.php?pid=52413
https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?op=pdf&app=CEF&id=B8249-S010
The Fallen by Richard Holt, 100713 Private J.M. Richardson pg 57