Thursday 14 May 2015

Taylor, Robert - Gunner (213210)

Gunner Robert Taylor
Royal Field Artillery,
Killed in Action
20th September 1917
Age 29

Commemorated on Tyne Cot Memorial.

Gunner Robert Taylor 213210 of the Royal Field Artillery was reported missing believed killed on 20 September 1917 whilst serving with the guns of the 51st Highland Division at Passchendale in Belgium. He was the son of the late Mr. Lawrence Taylor and Mrs Jane Ellen Taylor. Lawrence Taylor was a former landlord of the Bull’s Head Inn, Church Street, Haslingden. He previously farmed at Phineas Fold, Grane. Gnr Taylor was married with two sons and lived at 12 Peel Street, Haslingden. He was twenty-nine. Before he enlisted in February 1917 he was a butcher with J.W.Waite of Church Street. He was a regular attender at St Stephen’s Church, the Sunday School and the Men’s Institute. In a letter to his widow, Gnr. Taylor’s chaplain wrote - “Gnr. Taylor and another soldier were going up to the guns with a cart when a shell burst. His companion was found unconscious and unable to give any account of what happened. The ground has been searched and enquiries made at casualty clearing stations. [Small hospitals near the front line] but without result”. Gnr. Taylor’s body was never found. His name is therefore inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing some six miles (9.7 Kms.) north-east of Ypres. The memorial is in the form of a semi-circular wall around part of Tyne Cot Cemetery which, with 11,908 war graves, is the largest War Cemetery in France or Belgium. On the memorial wall are the names of over 35,000 men who died in the Ypres area between 16 August 1917 and  11 November 1918, and have no known grave. 588 of Gnr. Taylor’s comrades of the Royal Field Artillery are named. Another twenty five men from Haslingden are also named on the memorial.