Annie Grant ran the hotel by herself after her husband George died in 1907, aged 49. George, like his wife, was from Cumberland and had taken over the hotel from Adam Watt in 1895. He had previously run the Globe Hotel in Longtown, Cumberland, 11 miles south of Langholm, and before that had been an auctioneer and bookseller in Carlisle.

Both their sons, Hardy (Annie’s maiden name) and John, joined 1/5th KOSB. Hardy was shot by a sniper in the Dardanelles in August 1915 and is buried in Redoubt Cemetery, Helles, Turkey. He was a painter and had been living just over the Scotland-England border in Arthuret.

John won the Distinguished Conduct Medal for ‘remarkable initiative and gallantry’ at Soissons, France, on 28 July 1917. He was awarded the Langholm Burgh Medal in 1919, shown attending the ceremony below (third person to the right of the uniformed Earl of Dalkeith).