L/Cpl 57465 Robert Cathcart Stewart

 

Robert was declared Missing 22nd - 30th March 1918.  His father Robert contacted the International Red Cross in hopes that his son had been taken prisoner.  A reply was sent on 1st June 1918 to Mr. Robert Stuart [sic], 70 Clark Street, Airdrie, saying they held no information. 

His death was later officially accepted as having occurred, in action or from wounds, on or shortly after 22nd March 1918. He was 21 years of age.

The Battalion diary provides an insight into the events of the day: 

22^nd  GERMAINE – HAM- MOYENCOURT

The battalion moved up accordingly being in position at 6:30 a.m. About 3pm the enemy attacked the left of our position and advanced on our left flank towards FLUQUIERES. At 4:30 pm an attack was launched on our front and the enemy forced his way through on our right. The remainder of the Battalion was forced to retire to south of FLUQUIERES. During this engagement the Battalion lost 11 Officers and About 21 O.R. The order was given to retire to the defences at HAM. The Battalion by this time was very weak, and passing through the 20^th Division took up positions in HAM, as ordered, getting into position at 2am. 

His parents suffered the anguish of not knowing their son’s fate for nine months. His death was reported in the Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser, on 14th December 1918:

“Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, 70 Clark St., Airdrie, have just received intimation from the War Office that their son, Lance-Corpl. Robert C. Stewart, 19th King’s Liverpool Regiment, who had been posted missing since 22nd March last, is now reported to have been killed on that date in France.  He would have been 22 years of age on the 1st inst.  The gallant young man enlisted on 11th August 1915, and was previously in the employment of A. B. Brown, Ltd., bakers, Coatbridge.”

Robert has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.