| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Robert Hill was born in Atwick in Mar 1892, one of six children born to John William Hill and Caroline Robinson. John was an agricultural labourer from Holderness, Caroline was from Beverley. In 1901 the family were resident in Atwick but moved to the Beverley area before the war. Robert served in the Special Reserve of the regular army before the war as a Private in the 3rd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment. Prior to enlistment he was a deliveryman.
Robert enlisted in Hull on 7 Aug 1914, he was allocated to the 2nd Hull Battalion, the 11th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment; hence his army number 11/94. He later switched to the 13th Battalion. Both were Hull Pals Battalions, the 13th nicknamed “T’Others” as they were not drawn from a particular occupational group. Robert went to France on 7 May 1915, he did not travel to Egypt in Dec 1915 with the Hull Pals Battalions.
Robert was killed on 13 Nov 1916, the opening day of the last big battle on the Somme, the Battle of the Ancre. He was reported as “wounded and missing” in his army documents but his body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on the Somme. The 13th lost 18 officers and nearly 400 other ranks killed, wounded or missing in the action. The circumstances of Robert’s death are not known. He was posthumously awarded the War and Victory Medals. Robert is commemorated on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |