Photo: Geordie at War Project
Newcastle Daily Chronicle 11/01/1916
The headstone reads:-
In
Affectionate Remembrance of
Robert,
The dearly beloved son of
Robert & Hannah Laws
who was accidentally killed at York, while
serving with No.2 Company, Army Service Corps
January 9th 1916 in his 21st year
Also the above
Robert Laws
who passed away
December 11th 1926 in his 60th year.
Also Hannah,
wife of the above Robert Laws
who passed away
March 31st 1955 aged 87 years.
Also William
son of the above
who passed away
December 30th 1983 aged 50 years.
Also Hilda
daughter of the above
who passed away
December 30th 2001, aged 98 years.
The Newcastle Daily Chronicle 11/01/1916 reports:
Fatal Riding Accident at York.
Gateshead Soldier’s Death.
An inquest was held at Military Hospital, Fulford Road, York, last night, upon Robert Laws, driver in the 63rd Divisional train, Army Service Corps.
Laws, who was only twenty years of age, and enlisted in March last, was a son of Mr. Robert Laws, 7 Brighton Gardens, Gateshead, engine fitter.
The evidence showed that on Sunday afternoon Laws and a comrade named John Alfred Owen were out with two horses, giving them saddle exercise. As they were proceeding along Nunnery Lane at a jog trot Laws’ mount side slipped on the tarred macadam, and flung him sideways out of the saddle on to the road. The horse itself did not come down. It was found that Laws was unconscious, and he was at once conveyed in a motor car to the military hospital, Fulford Road, but he never regained consciousness and died about three hours after admission from concussion and cerebral haemhorrage. There was a large lacerated wound at the back of the head.
A verdict of accidental death was returned and the coroner and jury expressed sincere sympathy with the deceased’s father.
Robert Laws is remembered at Gateshead on G39.004
