7401 Private Martin CONDRON (1889 - 1915)

I wrote last time about the Gallipoli Campaign. For more details of the origins and first days of that campaign, click here.

Private Martin CONDRON (service no. 7401) was killed in action on 26 April 1915 at Cape Helles, Gallipoli. Martin Andrew CONDRON was born on 26 November 1889, at Newarthill Bridge, near Holytown, Lanarkshire, in Scotland. He was the son of Patrick and Mary (née LAWLOR) CONDRON.

Martin came from a long line of coal miners. His father died in the Holytown registration district when Martin was 7 years old, and his mother remarried in 1899, to a James O’NEILL. In the 1901 census for Holytown, Martin is living with his mother and stepfather, two sisters and a half-sister. Two years later, when Martin was 13, his mother died. In the 1911 census for Prestonpans, near Edinburgh, Martin is boarding in the household of a Michael Corrie and his occupation is given as “coal miner – hewer”. It was in Prestonpans that Martin enlisted in the 1^st Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

Martin’s parents, Patrick CONDRON and Mary LAWLOR, were married in Cleland, Lanarkshire, on 30 October 1886. Patrick’s occupation is given as coal miner, both in the 1881 census and on his marriage certificate. The couple had three children: Martin Andrew (1889), Maria (1895) and Catherine (1897).

His grandfather, Patrick CONDRON, was born in about 1837, probably in Ireland. He married Maria GORMLY on 21 February 1859, in Linlithgow, Scotland. The couple had at least two children: Mary (born 1859) and Martin’s father Patrick (1861).

Martin’s great-grandparents were Patrick CONRAN and Dorothia (alternatively Dora, Dolly) BYRNE. Patrick was a coal miner in Doonane, Queen’s County, Ireland, and the couple were married there in 1816. Patrick died sometime before 1859; his widow, Dolly, died in Shotts, Lanarkshire, in 1874. (Her maiden name is recorded as BURNS, more familiar than BYRNE in Scotland.) Several of their children moved to Scotland and lived in the mining community of Shotts.

The 1^st Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers, sailed from Avonmouth, England, on 18 March 1915 and landed at Cape Helles on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Martin CONDRON was killed in action there on 26 April 1915, and is memorialized on the Helles Memorial, Turkey.

For other blog posts about CONDR*Ns in the First World War, click on "First World War" in the Labels list on the right of the blog web page. Comments and corrections welcome, either by leaving a comment below or by email to me: CONDRAN[AT]ONE-NAME.ORG

11362 Private John CONDRON (1894 - 1915)

The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign, was conceived by the British at the start of 1915. The war on the Western Front had become deadlocked with the combatants on both sides entrenched. The Allies (Britain, France and Russia) planned the Gallipoli Campaign to get around the Central Powers’ (German, Austro-Hungary and Turkey) entrenched western defences. If successful, the campaign would provide relief to Russia’s army by diverting the Turkish forces and threaten the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (Istanbul). Finally, it would open a sea route for supplies to and exports from Russia’s Black Sea ports.

But the campaign was a major failure for the Allies. Historian Liddell Hart described it as “a sound and far-sighted conception, marred by a chain of errors in execution almost unrivalled even in British history”.

The initial plan was to force the Dardanelles strait with a naval attack on the Turkish fortifications guarding it. But following the sinking of three Allied battleships by mines on 18 March 1915, plans were reformulated to make an attack by land. The plan involved landing British forces at five beaches around Cape Helles at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, named from east to west as S, V, W, X and Y Beaches.  French forces were to land on the Asiatic side of the strait as a diversion from the main attack. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) were to land at a small cove – now known as Anzac Cove – to the north of ‘Y’ beach.

The first landings took place on the morning of 25 April. It is a date commemorated annually in Australia and New Zealand as Anzac day. The landings at some sites on that first day were initially relatively unopposed, but the main landings at V and W Beaches were chaotic and bloody, with great loss of life. Allied soldiers disembarking from their landing craft were caught up in submerged barbed wire and were shot by the Turkish defenders who were situated on high ground overlooking the beaches.

Several CONDR*Ns died in the Gallipoli campaign, and I shall write more of the progress of the campaign and of those men in subsequent postings.

Private John CONDRON (service no. 11362) was killed in action on 26 April 1915 on V Beach. He was born on 3 February 1894 and baptised the following day in the Roman Catholic parish of Rush, County Dublin. He was the son of Michael and Mary CONDRON.

John CONDRON was described as a “labourer” in the 1911 census, when he was living at home with his widowed mother, four brothers and a sister. He joined the 1^st Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, also known as “Torquay’s Regiment”: the regiment was billeted at Torquay until St. Patrick’s Day 1915, and left their regimental colours there for safe-keeping when they set sail for the Mediterranean. The “1^st Dublins”, as part of the 86^th Brigade of the 29^th Division, landed at V Beach on 25 April.

John’s parents were married in 1881, in the Balrothery registration district in which Rush is situated. Michael CONDRON was baptised in Rush in 1835. His bride, Mary CASHELL (or KESHAN or KESHELL) was 25 years his junior, born about 1860, also in Rush. Michael is described as a farmer in the 1901 census: he died in 1905.  The couple had nine children: Patrick (born 1882), Margaret (1884), William (1887), Mary Ellen (1889), Michael (1891), John (1894), Sarah (1896), Christopher (1898) and Joseph (1901).

It appears that John’s grandparents were Patrick and Mary (nee ARCHBOLD) CONDRON. The couple were married in Rush on 6 December 1834. Patrick, who was a labourer, died in 1876: his wife Mary died in 1887.

John CONDRON’s death was reported in the Western Times for Tuesday 8 June 1915, under the headline, “Heavy Losses in the Dardanelles Fighting”.  He is memorialized on Special Memorial A.26 at the V Beach Cemetery, Turkey.

For other blog posts about CONDR*Ns in the First World War, click on "First World War" in the Labels list on the right of the blog web page. Comments and corrections welcome, either by leaving a comment below or by email to me: CONDRAN[AT]ONE-NAME.ORG