FOUR brothers who attended the same school in Glasgow and died in action in the Great War, were remembered by the school yesterday at its 2018 War Memorial Service.

John Rankine Brown and his brothers William, George and Harold all perished between 1916 and 1918.

Their father, the Very Reverend Doctor John Brown, Moderator of the Church of Scotland in 1916, died in 1919, leaving his inconsolable widow, Margaret, to mourn her losses until her own death in 1943. Two of her own daughters also pre-deceased her. The brothers all attended the High School of Glasgow.

Countless schools across Scotland have memorials commemorating the fallen of the First World War. They all tell their own story of sacrifice. In some cases, the memorials have outlived the actual schools. In September it was reported that a memorial to former Wishaw High School pupils, rescued after the school closed in 1990, was to get a new home at Wishaw Old Parish Church.

The first of the Brown brothers to die was also the youngest. Harold, 19, fought with the Seaforth Highlanders at Ypres, was invalided home, returned to action with the 1st Gordons and fell in action at the Somme, on July 18, 1916, at Delville Wood. His body was never found.

The eldest brother, John, had been a prize-winning scholar before gaining a territorial commission in the 7th Highland Light Infantry. He was invalided home in 1915 after being wounded at Gallipoli. In 1916 he was sent to Egypt but was mortally wounded in the Battle of Gaza on April 21, 1917, and died two days later, aged 31.

George, who had worked for the Burmah Oil Company in Glasgow after leaving school, served with the 11th Royal Highlanders (Black Watch) and on April 21, 1917, received gunshot wounds while in action against Turkish troops in Mesopotamia. The Second Lieutenant died of his injuries a month later, aged 22.

In the summer of 1917, after the deaths of his three brothers, William, who had been on active service in France as a Lewis Gun Officer, attached to the 1st Battalion of the 3rd North Staffordshire Regiment, was sent to northern France as a machine-gun instructor. But, anxious to return "to the 'line'", he secured a transfer to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, was given command of a company, and ten days later was killed at the end of an operation to capture Uniform Farm, near Gheluwe, Belgium, which was held by vastly superior enemy forces. He was just 26.

In all, 478 former pupils at the High School of Glasgow fell in action or died in service during the Great War. All of them are recorded in the school’s book of service and remembrance and on a war memorial.

Every second year, the school stages battlefields visits, with teachers and third- and fourth-year pupils visiting war graves and memorials. The trips have been particularly emotional for two current pupils, Molly Alba and Eoin Cameron, both of whom lost relatives in the conflict.

Molly's great, great-grandfather, Private Andrew Henderson, died at Passchendaele, aged 33 at Steenbeck, after having fought with the "Dandy 9th", the 9th Battalion of the Royal Scots, at the battles of the Somme, Ancre, Arras and Ypres.

His body was never recovered but his name is inscribed on Panel 11 at the Menin Gate, which Molly has visited. "We were given small poppies to put down where we most wanted to show respect," said Molly, 17. "I didn't manage to put the poppy when we visited the Menin Gate on our last day, so my friends and I went back later that night and we put the poppy down. We all gathered round and everybody said something, and we all sang a song. It was really touching. It was nice that everybody showed respect for someone who had been in my family."

Eoin's great-uncle, Sergeant John Speirs, of the 9th Battalion Gordon Highlanders, died at the battle of Loos on September 25, 1915. "He was presumed dead, and his body was never found," said Eoin.

Of his own battlefield visit, he said: "You often just see graveyard after graveyard and headstone after headstone, but the company we went with were really good, because they allowed you to make that connection between a person, a human being, and feelings and thoughts, and friends that they had. That was pretty scarring in itself."

Chris Mackay, principal teacher of history, said the school's war memorial had yielded such stories as a man who died in the first war and his son in the second, and two twins who were both machine-gunners at Gallipoli before joining the Royal Flying Corps and being killed in 1917-18.

History teacher Nicola Sutherland, who organised the last two battlefield tours, said the aim "was to make young people aware of the sacrifices made. It is about understanding not just what the soldiers themselves went through, but also the implications for our young people, who will hopefully become young leaders and successful human beings in their own right, and the consequences of such things as voting in elections, leadership, and the decisions that you have to make."