Private Robert Griffin
7th Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
Died 31 July 1917
Private S/5953 Robert Alexander Griffin was born in 1889 at Sorbie, the son of railway porter, John Griffin, and his wife, Maggie Adair.  The family soon moved away from Sorbie: in 1891 they were living at 2 Greenvale Street, Stranraer. The 1901 census shows the family living at Stell Cottage, Penninghame, where John Griffin worked as a farm engine man.
Robert enlisted at Newton Stewart, leaving his job at Barglass where he worked for Mr John Christison. He served with the 7th Battalion, Black Watch. At the time of his death, John’s parents were living in Bladnoch. Two years earlier, on 16 May 1915, they had lost their son George, serving with the Scots Guards, killed at the Battle of Festubert. In May 1917 they lost a second son, John: Robert was the third of their children to die serving his country. A fourth son also served but survived the conflict.
Robert is buried at New Irish Farm Cemetery just outside Ypres. The Cemetery was first used from August to November 1917 and was named after a nearby farm, known to the troops as ‘Irish Farm’. It was used again in April and May 1918 and at the Armistice it contained just 73 burials but was then greatly enlarged when more than 4,500 graves were brought in from the battlefields north-east of Ypres. It is likely that Robert’s body was relocated from one of these other cemeteries after the end of the war. He is named on Kirkinner War Memorial.