Name
Robert William Edwards
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
12/08/1917
30
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
25486
Northamptonshire Regiment
5th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
MONCHY BRITISH CEMETERY, MONCHY-LE-PREUX
I.K.9
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Rickmansworth Urban District Memorial, St. Peter’s Church Memorial, Mill End, Nr Rickmansworth, Not on the Wilstone memorials
Pre War
Robert was born in Wilstone, Tring on the 23rd of September 1887 and baptised thereon the 6th of November. His parents were Walter William, a Labourer, and Frances Scaife (nee Gladwell ) Edwards.
In 1891 they were still in Wilstone with Robert and his brother George age under 1. In 1901 Robert age 13, a Farmhouse Boy, was with his cousin Joseph Edwards and family in Wilstone Green while his parents, with sons George 10, James 6, were living Scots Hill, Croxley Green.
Robert married Mary Spurr on the 1st of January 1911 in Rickmansworth and the census that year has them in Uxbridge Road, Mill End. Robert and Mary had three children Robert W 1911, Sydney J 1913, Alfred G 1916. Mary had a fourth child Vera M (father unknown) in 1919, two years after Robert's death, and in 1924 married William Wright. Their son, William T, was born in 1928. In 1939 William, Mary and four of the children were living 32 Fotherly Road, Rickmansworth.
Recorded as enlisting in Watford.
Wartime Service
The 5th (Service) Battalion was raised at Northampton in August 1914 as part of Kitchener's New Army and joined 12th (Eastern) Division. In January 1915 they converted to a Pioneer Battalion and, after training, landed Boulogne on the 30th of May. Over the next two and a half years they saw many actions.
For most of 1917 they were in the Arras sector participating in the First and Third Battles of the Scarpe and in the Battle of Arleux.
Robert died of wounds received whilst undertaking wiring work in the vicinity of Tilloy Wood on the 12th of August 1917 in 36th Field Ambulance at Tilloy. During the previous days the Battalion had been involved in the fighting around Monchy-Le-Preux working as pioneers, improving communications, building dug outs etc., mostly while under shell fire.
Pioneer battalions, created as an expedient in 1914, were a new concept in the British Army. Intended to provide the Royal Engineers with skilled labour and to relieve the infantry from some of its non-combatant duties, Pioneers became the work horses of the Expeditionary Forces up and down the Western Front.
Acknowledgments
Malcolm Lennox, Tanya Britton, Mike Collins, Paul Johnson
