Photo: Dorothy Hall
In Craghead St Thomas Churchyard is a family headstone which reads:-
In loving memory of
Mary Grace the beloved wife of
the late Robert Stewart
died Aug. 16th 1920 aged 64 years
Also Robert beloved son of the above
who was killed in France Sept. 21st
1918 in his 22nd year
Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-
Robert Stewart Jnr. was born 1897 in Craghead, Stanley, County Durham, one of 10 children of whom only 7 were living by 1911, 5 Boys and 2 girls, born to Thomas Stewart Snr. 1856 of Sunderland and his wife Mary Grace Coker 1857 native of Tavistock, Devonshire. His parents were married 1876 in the district of Chester-le-Street, Robert Snr. worked as a coal miner in Craghead, living at 38 Thomas Street in 1891. Unfortunately, he died in 1899 leaving his widow to be supported by her sons, William and Thomas, Robert when he was older, at the age of 14, worked as a pony driver underground, the family in 1911 were living at 39, Standerton Terrace, Craghead.
Robert Stewart enlisted in Stanley in 1915 and was initially assigned as Private 76137 West Yorkshire Regiment, later as Private 35506 to the Duke of Wellington West Riding Regiment, 9th Battalion arriving in France 1916. The Battalion attached to the 52nd Brigade, 17th Northern Division were in action on the Bluff, south east of Ypres in spring 1916, then moved to the Somme participating in the Battle of Albert capturing Fricourt and moving on to Delville Wood. They moved to the Arras sector seeing action in the First and Second Battles of the Scarpe and The Capture of Roeux, late summer they fought in Flanders in the First and Second Battles of Passchendaele. In the spring and autumn of 1918 the German Supreme Command committed thousands of troops, tons of equipment and hundreds of guns as part of a plan to make a series of large-scale surprise attacks and diversions against the Allied forces in an attempt to break the deadlock on the Western Front before the arrival of the U. S. Army destined to take to the French battlefields. They hoped to punch through the Allied defences, cut off the British from the French and push the British to the French and Belgian coast trapping them there. To this effect the 9th Battalion fought on the Western Front on all lines in 1918, at St Quentin, Bapaume, Amiens, Albert, Havrincourt, Epehy and Cambrai.
It was during the Battle of Epehy, September 21st 1918, that Private 35506 Robert Stewart was killed in action. His sacrifice is commemorated on panel 6 of the Vis-en-Artois Memorial, Pas de Calais, France. The memorial bears the names of over 9,000 officers and men who perished in the period August 8th to the date of Armistice in the sector between the Somme and Loos who have no known grave.
His mother as his sole beneficiary received all monies due to Robert, a pension and his awards of the British War Medal and Victory Medal. Robert was 22 years old and single.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
Robert Stewart is remembered at Craghead on C120.01, C120.02 and C120.04
