Name
Robert Alfred Clough
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
30/09/1940
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Civilian
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Letchworth Cemetery
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2), Letchworth Town Memorial, Vauxhall Motors War Memorial, Luton
Biography
He was born on the 2nd August 1914 and was the son of Mrs M. Clough of 27, Campers Ave, Letchworth. His father, Mr A. Clough, had been killed on H.M.S. Queen Mary at the Battle of Jutland during the Great War. Prior to going to the Hitchin Grammar School from 1927-1930 he attended Archbishop Temple's Central School in London. He was described as having a cheerful disposition and was popular with his contemporaries. Sadly, the family ran into financial difficulties and as at that time Hitchin Grammar School was a fee-paying school, Robert had to leave.
A quiet, withdrawn but intelligent man, he became a clerk with the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company, although by the time of his death he had recently joined the Vauxhall Motor Company in Luton as a Storekeeper. At that time Vauxhall were making tanks in addition to other vehicles.
On the 30th August 1940 there was a heavy German air-raid on the Vauxhall plant in Luton resulting in a number of people being killed and injured, including Robert who was injured by bomb fragments. During the night of the 29th/30th September 1940 he was at home in bed, when another bomb fell in open country near his home and he died after suffering heart failure from shock. His death certificate states "Syncope from shock arising from war operations".
It is suspected that it was the persistence of his mother, a quite forceful person, who caused his name to appear on at least three local War Memorials.
It has been suggested that he was buried in Newnham village churchyard in North Hertfordshire on the 3rd October 1940 after a post-mortem, though without an Inquest, however Commonwealth War Grave Records show him to be buried in Letchworth Cemetery. He was unmarried but his mother lived on into the 1960s having moved to 35, Campers Ave, Letchworth.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, his Death Certificate, Mr Frank Sapsed, a former neighbour, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Hitchin Grammar School Registers, Luton Central Library, Citizen Newspaper dated 11th Oct 1940, ‘The Mattocke Boys’ by J. Donald
