Name
Robert William Webster
1899
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/04/1916
27
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
2243
Royal Warwickshire Regiment
1st/7th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
FONCQUEVILLERS MILITARY CEMETERY
I. C. 6.
France
Headstone Inscription
HE DIED A NOBLE DEATH GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN BY EDIE, MUM AND CONNIE
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Abbots Langley memorials
Pre War
Robert William Webster, was born on 10 June 1889 in the registration district of St Georges Hanover Square, London, the son of Rippon and Annie Webster, and baptised on 1 September 1889 at All Saints Church, Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge.
Martha Clayton, was named as his guardian on 12 February 1900 when he was registered with Arthur Street School, Southwark and on the 1901 Census Robert was listed as boarder with the Clayton family at 5 Bells Garden Road, Camberwell, Surrey. Also listed as a boarder was Ruby Webster, aged 7 said to have been born in Windsor, Berks.
In 1914 he married Edith Testot in Coventry, Warwickshire by licence dated 11 September 1914. They had a daughter, Constance Annie, born on 25 April 1915. (Their address on pension records was 21 York Street, Coventry.)
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Coventry and joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and served with the 1st/7th Battalion in France from 22 March 1915.
He was killed in action in France on 3 April 1916, aged 27, and is buried in Fonquevillers Military Cemetery, France.
Additional Information
His widow received a war gratuity of £7 and pay owing of £2 9 9d for herself and £4 19s 4d for his daughter, Constance.
His widow re-married to Humphrey Terry on 23 September 1916 in Coventry and lived at 49, Breakspeare Road, Abbots Langley, Herts. meaning that Robert has no direct connection to Abbots Langley. A note on the pension records indicates that she would have received a pension of 5 shillings a week but re-married before the pension was paid. Instead, a gratuity of £52 was paid, but the child's pension was still in abeyance.
His mother remarried, date unknown, and was recorded as Mrs. J. Bradford, of 20, Radnor Gardens, Twickenham, Middx on CWGC documents.
It seems unlikely that Robert Webster has a direct connection with Abbots Langley and more likely that his wife moved to Abbots Langley after she remarried.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild
