109th Battalion

Lt. Col. Fee

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Lieutenant Colonel J.J.H. Fee
109th (Victoria & Haliburton) Battalion
Fee

& Lady Flora McCrea Eaton

LadyEaton

I have often thought that if I were a man I would be at the front to relieve them. The honor and glory of the Canadian soldier is all his own because he has made it himself. It is our duty now that we see that he is not deserted.

 (Lady Eaton, Toronto Star, 8 Dec 1917, 5)

On 24 May 1916, the 109th Battalion under the command of John James Havelock Fee assembled before a crowd of ten thousand in Lindsay, Victoria Country as it prepared to depart overseas. Speeches followed by Victoria MP and Minister of Militia Sir Sam Hughes and the battalion’s sponsors, Sir John and Lady Eaton.

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The Tax Man

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Lieutenant Colonel J. J. Glass
252nd (Lindsay) Battalion

War brought with it conscription—not as we used to see it, as the last horror of military tyranny, but as the crowning pride of democracy. An inconceivable revolution in the thought of the English speaking peoples has taken place in respect to it. The obligation of every man, according to his age and circumstance, to take up arms for his country and, if need be, to die for it, is henceforth the recognized basis of progressive democracy.

(Stephen Leacock, The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice, 1920)

John James Glass was a customs collector born on 12 November 1872 in Mariposa Township, Victoria County. Beginning in late 1916, Glass, a member of the 45th Regiment, attempted to raise a battalion from Lindsay. However, the home county of Militia Minister Sam Hughes had supplied most of its young men for the earlier battalions. With the volunteer system nearly at an end, Glass managed to recruit just over one hundred men.

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The Military Scientist

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Lieutenant Colonel James Ballantine, D.S.O.
76th and 109th BattalionsBallantine

They have got a new Col. in this battalion since we came to it. His name is Ballantine, he has been to France twice, and this is his third battalion to command so he has had a little experience anyway. He seems to take a great interest in the work of the men. He says he don’t care what kind of officers he has as long as he has good N.C.O.’s and men, all that the officers are good for is figure heads in his mind.

(J. H. Bennett, 109th Bn. to Garnet Bennett [brother], 22 Nov 1916)

Born on 3 September 1876 in Georgetown, Ontario, James Ballantine was a member of the 20th Halton Rifles and received military training at Toronto, Hayland Island, Hythe and Aldershot. He fought in the Boer War and was awarded the Queen’s Medal for gallantry.

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