Circumstances of Casualty: Killed in Action.
Location of Unit at Time of Casualty: Nine Elms Mill Cemetery.

BX May 4, 1917

Two more Brantford men are reported wounded in a late casualty list today. They are Private Peter Alexander Balfour of 18 Spring Street and Private Alfred Bert Benton of 98 Oxford Street. Private Balfour is a married man who had three years’ experience with the Dufferin Rifles. He left with a draft from that regiment. Benton was a machinist. He is single and went with the first Brant County Battalion.

BX May 19, 1917

Another Brantford man, Private Peter Alexander Balfour has made the supreme sacrifice at the front. Yesterday his wife, who lives at 18 Spring Street, had word that her husband had been killed. He went overseas with the first overseas battalion from the Dufferin Rifles. He was an employee of the Watson Company, and is survived by his wife and two small children.

BX May 21, 1917

Memorial Service for Private Balfour – Rev. J.W. Gordon Emphasized Need for Keeping of the Sabbath

If Europe had for the past 50 years kept the Sabbath, the effect upon the spiritual life of the continents would have been such that war would have been impossible. No permanent peace can be established amongst people who desecrate the Sabbath. People who carelessly and thoughtlessly break the Sabbath here seem to forget that it is the foundation of all permanent peace between individuals and nations.

The above were the forceful utterances of Rev. J.W. Gordon at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, in a memorial service last evening to the memory of Private Peter Balfour killed in action, April 9, 1917. Taking his text from the story of the quarrel of Abram and Lot, Rev. Mr. Gordon showed that the condition in which Abram had found himself was the position in which men of the type of Private Balfour found themselves. Naturally, men of peace, they found themselves embroiled in strife. Private Balfour was a home loving man who never sought strife of any kind and did not like war. He however, responded to what he believed the call of duty and laid down his life. His life was laid down in defence of Christian religion, liberty and of the well-kept Sabbath. In official German utterances, reference was made to God, but none to Jesus, the founder of Christianity. The Germans did not find in His spirit anything kinship with their own.
    
Appropriate music marked the service. Two anthems were rendered by the choir, “Sunset and Evening Star” and “How Bright Those Glorious Spirits Shine.”