Private David John McLeod

David John McLeod was born in Queensland in 1888 to parents Allan Milne and Margaret (née Nolan) McLeod. Allan, Margaret, and their three children David, Allan, and William moved from Australia to Paraguay to join the ‘New Australia’ colony in 1893.

New Australia was a socialist utopian settlement founded in Paraguay in 1893, by William Lane. The New Australia colony faced many problems, and split in two on 12 May 1894. The McLeod family became members of the newly formed Cosme colony. Cosme was ‘a co-operative settlement of English-speaking people, holding as principles communism, home-living, teetotalism’. Margaret McLeod died in the early 1900s leaving behind nine children. The eldest four children, including David, remained with their father and the younger five were adopted into other families.

At the outbreak of the war, men from the Paraguay colonies enlisted for service with the allied forces. McLeod, then aged 26, embarked from Buenos Aires, Argentina, on board the Amazon, disembarking at Liverpool, England, on 30 November 1914. He enlisted for service on 30 December 1914 and joined the 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) with the rank of private. He was transferred to Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in July 1915. While on leave in England, on 23 May 1916, McLeod married Rhoda Sinclair, a Red Cross nurse and daughter of Reverend George and Mrs Sinclair of Dunbar, Scotland.

On 27 August 1917, David John McLeod was killed in action in Belgium and was buried at Coxyde Military Cemetery, Belgium.