Patrick Blair (rugby union)
Patrick Charles Bentley Blair (18 July 1891 – 6 July 1915) was a Scottish rugby union player.
Biography
Blair was born in Wanlockhead, Dumfriesshire, the son of Rev. Charles Patrick Blair and Jeanie Bogle Smith Blair.[1] He was educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh, where he played rugby and field hockey, and King's College, Cambridge.[2] where he played for the King's College team and Cambridge University RFC.
Blair was capped five times for Scotland in 1912–13,[3] against South Africa, Wales, Ireland, England and France.[2]
After earning a first-class degree at Cambridge, Blair joined the Egyptian Civil Service's Finance Department. After World War I began, he returned to Cambridge for military training. He was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade in March 1915. Four months later, he was killed by a shell in Boezinge, Flanders.[2] He is buried in the Talana Farm Cemetery.[4]
Patrick is listed among the memorial to the 133 rugby players lost in the Great War at Fromelles in the north of France.
References
- ^ "1891 BLAIR, PATRICK CHARLES BENTLEY (Statutory registers Births 853/B 15)". Scotland's People. National Records of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon.
- ^ a b c McCrery, Nigel (2014). Into Touch: Rugby Internationals Killed in the Great War. Pen and Sword. p. 161. ISBN 9781781590874.
- ^ Bath, Richard (ed.) The Scotland Rugby Miscellany (Vision Sports Publishing Ltd, 2007 ISBN 1-905326-24-6)
- ^ "Casualty: Second Lieutenant Blair, Patrick Charles Bentley". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
External links
- "An entire team wiped out by the Great War". The Scotsman, 6 November 2009
