Peter Wishart was born on 4 November 1884 in Glasgow. He was the eldest of six children of Peter Wishart, a letterpress printer from Glasgow, and his wife, Agnes Drysdale. By 1891 the family were living at 37 Dalmarnock Street in Camlachie and 23 Charles Street ten years later when Peter had found work as a general labourer.

On 29 April 1910, Peter married a cotton worker named Margaret Kirk in Glasgow with five children born of the marriage between 1911 and 1921. The Wisharts lived at 609 Dalmarnock Road, and Peter was employed as a tube worker at Stewarts & Lloyds Phoenix Tube Works in Rutherglen.

Peter joined the Territorials in Rutherglen on 8 April 1913 and served with the 2nd Lowland Field Company, Royal Engineers. He remained in the UK until 18 March 1915 when his company was posted overseas and among the first British units to arrive in Gallipoli on 25 April. On 4 June Peter’s section was sent forward with the Ghurkas to provide support at the Third Battle of Krithia, during which he was wounded in his left shoulder by shrapnel. He was evacuated to Alexandria where he boarded a hospital train bound for Cairo, arriving on the 10 June.

On 26 August Peter had recovered enough to rejoin his unit at Suvla and remained on the peninsula until 19 December, when the company left for Egypt. In February 1916 the engineers were transferred into the 52nd Division and would spend the rest of the war based in Egypt and the Middle East. During the night of 1 November 1917, he suffered temporary deafness caused by gunfire and shells and was sent to a hospital in Aden to recover.

When he had recuperated, Peter was sent to join the 410th Lowland Field Company, Royal Engineers and was posted to France on 17 April 1918; however, during the summer, while on leave, he contracted influenza and was a patient at Maryhill Military Hospital in Glasgow between 13 and 25 July. He returned to the engineers on 3 August and except for being accidentally hit in the eye by a rifle in November, served out the rest of the war without further injuries or ailments.

Peter was eventually discharged from service on 10 March 1919 and returned to Glasgow where he lived with his family on Springfield Road. He worked as a chemical worker until retirement and in 1950, following his wife’s death three years earlier; he remarried to a Jeanie Simon, who was also a widow. He died at his home in Shettleston from pneumonia on 3 July 1951.

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