Lieutenant, Royal Engineers
Born: September 3rd 1894
Died: July 29th 1916
Age at Death: 21
Killed in action near Givenchy, France, July 29th 1916
Son of D.M. Scobie of Hove. Brother to Keith MacDonald Scobie (Ha. 1910-1914).
A donation to the memorial statue has been made in honour of this soldier by the Rogers Family.
“We will always remember you."
The Rogers Family
Obituary Brightonian XV December, 1916
J.A.N. MacEwen Scobie was the elder son of Donald Mackay Scobie, late P.W.D. India. He was born in 1894, at Amrapti, Berar, India. He entered Brighton College in September, 1909, obtaining the first Mathematical Entrance Scholarship. He was keen at games, and played for his House (Hampden) in cricket and football, and also took several prizes at the Athletic Sports. He was a Prefect, and a Sergeant in the School O.T.C. and passed 16th direct into the R.M.A. Woolwich, in July, 1912. In July, 1914, he passed out 13th, into the Royal Engineers, obtaining prizes in both gunnery and science. On the outbreak of war in August, 1914, he went through a short technical course at Chatham and Aldershot; and after about eight months' field training proceeded to France in August, 1915, having obtained promotion to Lieutenant in June, 1915. He was killed in action near Bethune, on the night of July 29th, 1916, by a bullet passing through the left lung, causing almost instantaneous death. A senior officer writes of him:- "I feel his loss very much, not only as a an officer, but as a friend, as he was a very fine type of Englishman, absolutely dependable, fearless, Full of good humour, and a very high moral character. As an officer, he would have risen high in his profession had he been spared, as he was full of clever ideas, well read, and however difficult the work given him was, he always made a good and sound job of it, and left nothing to chance."
Lieutenant John Angus Nicolson MacEwen Scobie
Scobie was born in Berar India in 1894, one of two sons of Donald Scobie, an engineer with the Indian Public Works Department, and his wife Joan (nee MacEwen). Joan Scobie died in 1900 in Toungoo, Upper Burma, and shortly thereafter the family had moved to 36 Pembroke Avenue, Hove, and later to 21 Rutland Gardens, Hove where they lived with Joan’s sister, Mary MacEwen. Tragically Scobie’s only brother, Keith Scobie, was killed while training as an RAF pilot in October 1918 (the last month of the war), which left Scobie’s father Donald both widowed and childless for the remaining twenty years of his life. The other details about his early years, and his time at the school, are unclear, although it is clear that his father’s career had taken him from his native Scotland to service as a government engineer for the British Raj in India. Given his father’s profession it is unsurprising that he enlisted in the Royal Engineers on the outbreak of war, rather than an infantry regiment, although his younger brother[1] chose to join the Royal Garrison Artillery instead.
During 1915 received a commission in the 225th (Stockton on Tees) Company, Royal Engineers, which despite its name appears to concentrated and trained in Winchester and Aldershot prior to dispatch to France in February 1916. It was brigaded with several battalions of the Sussex Regiment and suffered heavy losses during the battle of the Somme. It was during the latter battle, in the fighting on the Ancre, that Scobie lost his life on 30th July 1916. Scobie is buried in Commonwealth War Cemetery at Le Touret, Richebourg L’avoue, France.
[1] See Lieutenant Keith Macdonald Scobie,
Source: LEST WE FORGET PROJECT, Brighton College 2014/15