John Maley was born on January 6th, 1891 in Scotland. John gained a couple of months experience with the Highland Light Infantry in Glasgow. Then at 20, John followed his family to Canada, arriving in Quebec on June 5th, 1911 on board the SS Athenia. John’s sister Margaret and brother-in-law Joseph Rennie housed John, his brother William, and sister-in-law Rosanna in Galt (Cambridge), Ontario. Despite some initial difficulty finding work, John got a job as a laborer in Galt. John’s brother William was the highest wage earner in the household working as an engineer and earning $624 per year.
Following the outbreak of the war, John was the only one of the brothers to volunteer to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force. John fought as a Private in the 1st Battalion in France. Sadly, at 24 years old, John was killed in action during the Second Action at Givenchy while in the trenches at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée. Private John Maley is commemorated on the Vimy Memorial in France.
Service number: 7176
“John M. Maley,” Waterloo Region Generations, assessed March 20, 2015, http://generations.regionofwaterloo.ca/getperson.php?personID=I139102&tree=generations
