Duncan McDONALD was born in 1888, and, a tailor by trade, lived near Lochgilphead, a village on the narrow Kintyre peninsula on the west coast of Scotland. He applied to the mid-Argyll Tribunal for registration as a CO, and on 9 March 1916 was allowed only exemption from combatant service, meaning that he would be called up to the Non-Combatant Corps (NCC), specially created for COs prepared to join the Army, but without handling weapons. This he accepted and was shipped to France on 30 May. Five days later whilst off duty, he was found dead on a railway line. There was no equivalent of an inquest, but an internal Army enquiry concluded that it was an “accident” for which he “was himself to blame”. It is possible that, as he had always lived in a rural area remote from railways, he was unfamiliar with the potential danger and was careless as to crossing a railway track in a busy urban environment.

Duncan was the first NCC fatality, he is buried in Calais Southern Cemetery.