The son of Hawick factory owner John Turnbull Laing, Ivan and his siblings were educated at the family home before he went to New College, Eastbourne to further his education. He also received tuition abroad, in Belgium. Laing was a fine all-round sportsman who swam for Scotland, played rugby for the Hawick XV, and even had a trial with the Scottish national side, but it was at hockey that he excelled and, along with his brothers, played for the Teviotdale mixed hockey club. He later joined the Hawick club and was a member of the Scotland team that went to the 1908 Olympics, although he was not originally selected for the squad. It was the first time hockey had been played at the Olympics and less than five minutes after the start of their match against Germany at the White City on 29 October 1908, Laing had the distinction of scoring the first goal in Olympic hockey history as Scotland went on to win 4-0.
When war broke out, Laing enlisted into the London Regiment before being gazetted into the 2nd battalion, Coldstream Guards, where his older brother Walter served as an officer. Ivan was sent to France in 1916 and immediately saw action at the Somme that merited recommendation for a Military Cross. During an attack in November 1917, however, when the Germans tried to re-gain the area they had lost the previous year, Laing was killed by machine gun fire. In 2009, an annual Ivan Laing Hockey Match between the senior boys and senior girls at Hawick High School was inaugurated and donated by the Hawick Archaeological Society.
Great Britain