13250 LANCE CORPORAL ROBERT CHARLES ETHERIDGE
‘D’ COMPANY 9TH BATTALION MACHINE GUN CORPS
DIED OF WOUNDS
21ST OCTOBER 1918
AGE 26 YEARS
As with many of his contemporaries from Halesworth who would go on to serve in the Great War, Robert had been born in the last decade of the 1800s, seeing the light of day in the first quarter of 1892. His father Charles was employed as one of the local postmen, while his mother Anne (née Butcher) had originated in Ipswich before moving into the town in her early life, where she found work as a boot fitter, employed by one of the local boot and shoe manufacturers. After completing his education at the boy’s school Robert eventually found himself training as a butcher for Eastman’s Ltd at their shop in the Thoroughfare. In 1912 the company of Eastman’s was one of the first national chains of butchers, with a total of one thousand, four hundred shops situated in many towns the length and breadth of the country. Around this time Robert, who must have been considered a promising employee, left the family home of 73 London Road having been transferred to the company’s shop in Luton, Bedfordshire, where he was employed as an under manager. It was here that he met his future wife, Fanny Wilkins, who at the time of their meeting was working as a domestic servant.
With the outbreak of the First World War Robert, with a steady job and home life, was not one of those young men who rushed to join the Colours but at some time in late 1915, possibly due to the news that the Government were considering the introduction of compulsory conscription (which eventually began in March 1916), Robert travelled back to Halesworth prior to enlisting at Ipswich. On signing up he became 23323, a Private soldier in the Suffolk Regiment, where after completing his basic training he crossed to France in the March of the following year. It is not known whether it was before he arrived at the front or sometime later that he was transferred to join the Infantry branch of the Machine Gun Corps, with the new regimental number of 13250. Research shows that this new Corps had been officially formed on the 14th October 1915 in order to equip formations at Divisional level with their own supporting battalions equipped with the superb Vickers machine guns. This would then provide them with far greater effective firepower in both defence and attack. Originally each M.G. Battalion was equipped with three companies, each armed with ten-gun detachments, but from early 1918 this number was increased to four companies. This could well have been when Robert received promotion to a Lance Corporal, becoming a gun commander in the fourth ‘D’ Company of the 9th Battalion that supported the 9th (Scottish) Division.
Prior to this and by August 1917, having now served over eighteen months in France, he must have qualified for some home leave, for in the third quarter of 1917 Robert married his sweetheart Fanny. It was possibly due to the time constraints imposed by a short period of leave that their marriage service was held in Halesworth, not, as was the custom, in the bride’s hometown. After the marriage Robert returned to France, with Fanny moving into her in-law’s family home in London Road. On their separation little did either of them know it would possibly be their last time together.
Around the time Robert had re-joined his comrades in the 9th Division, they would have been preparing to be involved in what was to become known as the first battle of Passchendale. This proved to be a bloody affair where many soldiers from both sides were to lose their lives literally drowning in a sea of mud. In the spring of 1918, the Germans began their last major offensive. This would later prove to be the last throw of the dice for the Kaiser’s army, for after some quite considerable gains in both land and allied equipment captured, they were eventually held and then started to be driven back towards their own borders. By late September 1918, the 9th Division were playing a major role in the allied advance through Flanders. Just a few weeks later they had reached an area outside the Belgium town of Courtrai. It was during the fighting to clear the enemy from their positions that Robert received the wounds that he would eventually die from on the 21st October while being treated in the 28th British Field Ambulance. Sadly, his death came just twenty-one days before the Armistice.
In Halesworth his loss was first announced in the local newspaper on the 5th November, with a fuller obituary on the 19th of the month, quoting one passage of a letter sent to his wife Fanny by his detachment officer, who wrote of Robert being a brave and cheerful companion as well as a reliable and effective leader of the men in his gun crew. He then went on to explain that after receiving his wounds he had remained conscious for a short time and that his only thought was to ask for me to write and let you know.
After his death Robert was originally laid to rest in the civilian churchyard in the village of Harlebeke but in 1951 his remains, along with all of the other Commonwealth servicemen from both World Wars that lie in that area, were exhumed and reinterred in the Harlebeke New British Military Cemetery in the region of West-Viaanderen, Belgium.
On Robert’s death all outstanding monies attributed to his service were paid to his widow Fanny for which she received a total of £19.8s.11d (£19.45p) with an additional weekly pension of 13s.9d (69p) being paid from the 12th May 1919. By that time, she had left Halesworth and was now employed and living in Hampstead in North London. From that time until her death in 1970 she was never to remarry. Fanny being Robert’s next of kin, she would also have been able to claim his medal entitlement of the British War and Victory medal pair with a named bronze memorial plaque and scroll.
The location of these is unknown.
Eastman’s butchers shop in Halesworth, Thoroughfare.
This is where Robert trained as a butcher from 1912.