William Lindsay Wishart was born at 5:40 am on 9 July 1880 at 2 Campsie Terrace, Gourock Road in Greenock. He was the eldest of eleven children born to William Lindsay Wishart, a swimming bath superintendent from Aberdeen, and his wife, Catherine McKinnon Wilson. By the time he was eight-months-old, the family had moved to 6 Cavendish Street in the Gorbals area of Glasgow and 24 Westmoreland Street ten years later in 1891.

At the time of the 1901 census, William was working as a commercial traveller and living at 122 Hospital Street. On 1 January 1904, he married a local sewing machinist named Mary Bryden McCartney at 28 Myrtle Park in Crosshill, Glasgow with four children born of the marriage over the next ten years.

Based on his service number it seems likely that William enlisted at the end of 1915 or the start of 1916. He joined the Highland Light Infantry and was posted to the 15th (Service) Battalion (1st Glasgow), who had been in France since November 1915. Exact dates for William’s war service are not available; however, he appears to have been lucky and escaped any kind of injury while at the front and was probably demobilised in early 1919.

William, Mary and their children left the UK on 19 December 1919 and sailed on board the SS Carmania for New York. Upon arrival, they headed to Detroit and rented a house in Cedarhunt next door to William’s sister Catherine. William had found work as a machine hand at the Ford Motor Company and by 1930 was working as a salesman at a printing shop.

He died on 10 July 1951 in Eloise near Detroit.

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