24553 PRIVATE ROBERT JOHN MUTTITT
11TH (SERVICE) BATTALION (CAMBRIDGESHIRE)
SUFFOLK REGIMENT
KILLED IN ACTION
26TH AUGUST 1917
AGE 28 YEARS
Robert John Muttitt was born during the first quarter of 1890, the third child and second son of Laura (née Ingate) and her husband, William, a maltster’s labourer. At the time of Robert’s birth, the family were to be found living in a small cottage located on the Broadway, Halesworth in which Laura continued to live right up to her death at the age of eighty-one in September 1940. On completing his education Robert found work as a farm labourer, with research showing that at the outbreak of World War One in August 1914, he was in the employ of Messrs. Bradnum Laws and Co, fruit growers and farmers, situated at Moat Farm in the nearby village of Westhall. Unlike his younger brother George (see previous), Robert was not one of those young men and boys who rushed to join the country’s armed forces when the war had been declared.
From an article published in the Halesworth Times newspaper of 11th September 1917, in which his parents reported on his death while in France, it appears that he had joined the army at some time after the introduction of conscription in January 1916 and that he died some three months after arriving on the Continent. The small amount of official records that survive show that he had originally enlisted to serve as 24553, a Private Soldier in the Suffolk Regiment. After training, he had been posted to join the 12th (Service) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment (East Anglian). This was one of several units formed during the middle months of 1915 and known as Bantam Battalions. Their aim was to encourage men of small stature to enlist in the army, with the height restrictions set at a minimum of five feet up to five feet two inches tall. The 12th Suffolks had crossed to France on 6th June 1916, which would have been around the time of Robert being called to join the army. After nine months of training in England, he would have been despatched to one of the Infantry Base Depots situated near the French coast to continue his training, prior to being sent to his battalion as a casualty replacement. It would appear that, although he had been allocated to serve with the 12th Suffolks, after their sister battalion, the 11th Suffolks under the Command of the 101st Brigade, 34th Division, had been recently involved in heavy combat in the area of the French village of Roeux, where they had suffered almost three hundred casualties, Robert, with several other men, had then been moved to join them. The 11th (Service) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment (Cambridgeshire) had been raised, as another of Kitchener’s new army battalions, at Cambridge on 25th September 1914. As the county regiment was purely a pre-war Territorial formation without a Regular Army equivalent, they did not have a regimental depot. They were then seconded to the Suffolk Regiment for training and administration, but were able to retain their link with their home county by including Cambridgeshire in their title and later had ‘CAMBS’ added above their brass shoulder title (see below). Prior to Robert’s joining the 11th Suffolks in early May they had spent some time in the Arras sector where they were able to have some much-needed rest and receive reinforcements, with sufficient time to train them in the skills required to become a front-line infantryman. The following month the Battalion had been transferred to the Gaurelle sector, where they were described as having had a lively time while sustaining several casualties. This period was then followed by a return to the Arras front. On 24th August 1917 the Battalion moved once more into the front line where, two days later they had taken part in a most successful attack on Malaknoff farm and the German trench system in front of the village of Hargicourt, in which all of their designated objectives were quickly gained after some savage hand-to-hand fighting, it was during this day that Richard met his end. The circumstances of his death are not known. This was also the day when the Suffolks would win their second Victoria Cross for valour during the Great War, when Corporal Sidney Day, who hailed from Norwich, was awarded the highest honour for bravery in the face of the enemy. It is a sad coincidence that on both occasions when the V.C. were won by soldiers of the Suffolk Regiment one of the Muttitt brothers was present. Robert lost his life on that very day, while George was killed some two and half years after the award had been won by Sergeant Arthur Saunders from Ipswich .
Like a number of the menfolk from the town who lost their lives, their next of kin would have received notice of their loss from friends of the soldier rather than through official channels. Robert’s parents first received the news of their son’s death in a letter from one of his friends, Private Arthur Jeyes, a bricklayer from Northampton, who, although he survived the war, suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg just two weeks before the Armistice. After his death, Robert’s body was recovered from the battlefields and laid to rest in the Hargicourt Communal Cemetery in France.
On 24th June 1919, Robert’s father William, having been nominated as his sons’ next of kin, received the second of two war gratuity payments in respect of his son’s life that totalled a sum of £10.11s.1d (£10.55p). Because of the family’s circumstances, with the head of the house in full-time employment, they would not have been entitled to a pension. However, this had changed by 1926 as, with William now having reached the age of seventy-one years and possibly no longer able to carry out heavy work, Laura contacted the Ministry of Pensions asking if they could be considered as being entitled to a pension for the loss of their two sons. This was then granted, so from 15th May 1926 they received a weekly pension of 8s 6d (43p) with annual increases which they would receive for life. William, then went on to live to the age of eighty-two, dying in 1936, with Laura passing away in 1940 aged eighty-one years.
As well as the monetary payments his parents would have also been entitled to claim his medal entitlement of the British War and Victory pair with his named memorial plaque and scroll.
Today his plaque, like his brother’s, is in a private collection while the location of his medal pair is unknown.
As a final tribute to the Muttitt family’s loss in the Great War, during 2014 two ceramic poppies were purchased by members of the Sansom family to be added to the field of poppies laid within the grounds of the Tower of London in memory of all of those who had perished.
The insignia as worn by the men of the 11th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment to show their Cambridgeshire connection
