Private Buckam Singh

Private Buckam Singh was a Punjabi Sikh who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War. His grave at Mount Hope Cemetery in Kitchener, Ontario, is the only military grave in Canada of a Sikh soldier from the World Wars, according to the Sikh Museum's page on the annual remembrance ceremony there. The Sikh Museum's exhibit on him gives seven spellings of his name and uses Buckam Singh, the spelling in his last known signature.

The Sikh Museum says he came to British Columbia from Punjab in 1907, aged 14, worked as a miner, and moved to Ontario in 1912 or 1913, where he was a farm hand at Rosebank when the call for service came. Wikipedia, which gives his birth as 5 December 1893 at Mahilpur, says he enlisted at Smiths Falls in April 1915 and listed his religion as Church of England because there was no Sikh option. It counts him among ten Canadian Sikhs who served.

Key moments

• 1915: he joined the Canadian forces. The Toronto Star, quoted by the museum, called him the first Sikh to enlist with an Ontario battalion. The Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada's timeline says Private Simla Goojer Singh enlisted in Montreal with the 24th Battalion on 6 January 1915 and that a handful of others, Buckam Singh among them, joined him soon after.
• 1916: he served in Flanders and was wounded twice. After one wound he was treated at a hospital run by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, the soldier-poet, and while recovering in England he contracted tuberculosis, the museum says.
• 1919: he died aged 25 in a military hospital in Kitchener, 27 August according to Wikipedia.

The sources differ on his unit. The museum names the 20th Canadian Infantry Battalion, the Toronto Star says he went overseas with a Kingston battalion, and Wikipedia, citing the Canadian Encyclopedia, says his headstone names the 28th Battalion.

Remembered for: the museum says his story was uncovered with the discovery of his Victory Medal and is now reclaimed and celebrated every year. The Sikh Remembrance Day ceremony has been held at his grave every year since 2008. Its hosts describe it as one of the largest annual gatherings of Sikh soldiers and veterans in North America.