| Regimental number | 4661 |
| Place of birth | Homebush, North Sydney, New South Wales |
| School | Newington College, Stanmore, New South Wales |
| Other training | Two years at Sydney University School of Engineering. |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
| Occupation | Student |
| Address | Middleton Street, Stanmore, New South Wales |
| Marital status | Single |
| Age at embarkation | 20 |
| Next of kin | Mother, Mrs J.P. Muir, Brescia, Appian Way, near Burwood, Sydney, New South Wales |
| Previous military service | Served in the Sydney University Scouts. |
| Enlistment date | |
| Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
| Rank on enlistment | Private |
| Unit name | 1st Battalion, 14th Reinforcement |
| AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/18/4 |
| Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board RMS Osterley on |
| Rank from Nominal Roll | Lieutenant |
| Unit from Nominal Roll | 45th Battalion |
| Recommendations (Medals and Awards) |
Military Cross Recommendation date: |
| Other details from Roll of Honour Circular | He was a strong mathematician winning an open scholarship and the Wigram Allen scholarship for mathematics at Newington College. He was awarded the Military Cross for services at the Battle of Messines in June of 1916. |
| Fate | Returned to Australia |
| Place of death or wounding | Passchendaele, Ypres, Belgium |
| Age at death | 22 |
| Age at death from cemetery records | 22 |
| Place of burial | No known grave |
| Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), Belgium The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave. The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936. Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign. |
| Panel number, Roll of Honour, Australian War Memorial | 140 |
| Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: John Paton and Jeanie Paton MUIR, 'Brescia', Appian Way, Burwood, New South Wales |
| Medals |
Military Cross 'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led his platoon with great skill and determination, capturing an enemy strong point, which he reorganized and held. He afterwards did most valuable work in extending his battalion fron and in leading a reconnoitring patrol into the enemy's country.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 219 Date: |
| Other details |
War service: Western Front Medals: Military Cross, British War Medal, Victory Medal |