Lt.-Col. George Alexander Walker Lamond (23 July 1878 – 25 February 1918) was a

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

international

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player.Bath, Richard (ed.) ''The Scotland Rugby Miscellany'', p. 109. (Vision Sports Publishing Ltd, 2007 ) He later joined the British Army as an officer, but he died during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

He played for

Kelvinside Academicals Kelvinside Academicals is a former rugby union team that played their home games at Balgray Playing Fields, Glasgow, Scotland. The team was founded in 1888 by former pupils of the Kelvinside Academy. The team no longer exists. In 1982 it merg ...

in his native

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Provincial career

He was capped by Glasgow District. He scored a drop goal in the Inter-City match of

1898 Events January–March * January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, B ...

International career

Lamond had three caps for in 1899–1905.

Engineering career

His rugby career was interrupted by his professional career; a civil engineer, Lamond joined the firm of Sir John Aird and moved to Egypt. For his services in the Middle East, he was decorated with the Order of the Medjidie and

Order of Osmanieh The Order of Osmanieh or Order of Osmaniye ( ota, نشانِ عثمانیہ) was a civil and military decoration of the Ottoman Empire. History The order was created in January 1862 by Sultan Abdülaziz. With the obsolescence of the Nişan-i If ...

by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. During the First World War, his skills were put to use by the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

. He was first deployed to France, where his many engineering projects led to a promotion to lieutenant colonel, and then to Mesopotamia, where he was engaged in building the new

Port of Basra The Port of Basra, also known as Al Maqal Port, is an Iraqi port in Basra, situated on the Persian Gulf. Location The Port of Basra is a port located in downtown Basra City, Iraq, on the banks of the Shatt Al Arab River, 135 kilometers upstream ...

over the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

and

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

. He fell ill with a fever and was sent to Sri Lanka to recover, but his conditioned worsened and he died in February 1918. He is buried in the non-conformist section of Colombo (Kanatte) General Cemetery, in

Borella Borella is the largest suburb in Colombo, Sri Lanka represented by divisional code 8. Demographic Borella is a multi-religious and multi-ethnic area. The major ethnic communities in Borella are Sinhalese and Tamils. There are also various other ...

References

External links

"An entire team wiped out by the Great War"
''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...

'', 6 November 2009 1878 births 1918 deaths Scottish rugby union players Scotland international rugby union players British military personnel killed in World War I Royal Engineers officers Kelvinside Academicals RFC players Rugby union players from Glasgow Recipients of the Order of the Medjidie Scottish civil engineers Glasgow District (rugby union) players British Army personnel of World War I Rugby union centres British expatriates in the Ottoman Empire {{UK-army-bio-stub