Background
Buckham Singh was born on December 5, 1893, in the farming town of Mahilpur, India, to Badan Singh Bains and Chandi Kaur.
Buckham Singh was born on December 5, 1893, in the farming town of Mahilpur, India, to Badan Singh Bains and Chandi Kaur.
In March 1903, at age 10, the young Singh was married to Pritam Kaur of Jamsher in an arranged marriage. They traveled by train across Canada and fell in love with the landscape of British Columbia. Upon their return to Punjab, word about Canada spread and the 14-year-old Singh left for British Columbia in 1907.
At the time of Singh"s immigration to Canada there was a labour shortage in British Columbia, and while the Canadians did not like to give jobs to foreigners, they had no choice.
Additionally, all new immigrants had to have $250 in savings, ten times the amount European immigrants had to have. This was quite a large amount as at the time wages were just cents a week.
Because of these discriminatory conditions, Singh moved to Ontario and began working for a farmer in Rosebank. He was then sent to Barriefield Camp near Kingston, Ontario, and joined the 59th Battalion.
Because of the need to deploy troops to the Western Front as quickly as possible, Singh received little training and was shipped out in the first of two contingents of 250 men aboard the South.S. Scandinavian 2 on August 27, 1915, arriving in England on September 5.
There, Singh was transferred to the 39th Reserve Battalion to await deployment to a combat battalion. On January 21, 1916, Singh arrived in France and joined the 20th Battalion. While fighting he was hit on the head with shrapnel on June 2, 1916, and sent to hospital until the end of the month, when he rejoined his battalion.
He was again wounded at Saint Eloi on July 20 and sent to a hospital run by John McCrae and then crossed the English Channel to make his recovery in Manchester.
On March 11, 1917, Singh was considered fit enough to rejoin active combat and was sent to the Central Ontario Regimental Depot and waited to be sent to France again. However, he developed severe tuberculosis and was sent back to Canada in May.
He was discharged on August 1, 1918, and spent the remainder of his days at Freeport Military Hospital, where he died on August 27, 1919. He is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Kitchener, Ontario.
On August 5, 1914, Canada entered World War I as a member of the British Empire.