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