Canadian Badge

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born on 24th July 1890 in Gateshead, Robert Edward was the son of brass founder William Winslow Atkinson and his wife Elizabeth Ann (nee Laidman). He had two older siblings Mary and William and three younger, Lydia, Florence and Thomas. In 1881 the family were living in Swan Street, had moved to Orchard Place, Dunston by 1891 and ten years later all, except Mary, were living in Renforth Street, Dunston and Robert was working as a pattern maker.

Robert arrived in Canada in 1906 and made for Alberta where he filed a Homestead Grant for farm land at Rexboro, Alberta. In 1910 in Wabamun, Alberta he married Jennie Pearson, a Durham girl who had arrived in the country two years previously and they settled to married life at Hillcrest Farm, Fallis where they had a child who died in infancy.

On 13th April 1916 Robert enlisted with the 202nd (Sportsmen’s) Battalion in Edmonton and after initial training at Sarcee Camp, Calgary sailed with them aboard SS Mauretania from Nova Scotia to Liverpool, arriving at the end of November and a posting to billets at Witley Camp, Surrey. Six months later Private Atkinson joined to the 31st (Alberta) Battalion and was posted to France as part of the 6th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division. Robert didn’t join his new battalion until August 1917 as he was admitted to hospital with influenza on arrival in France and then spent time in a convalescent depot. Assigned to “B” Company he joined them in billets at Maroc on 14th August and four weeks later was attached to the Canadian Reinforcement Camp, rejoining the 31st at Caucourt in mid-October.

The Canadian attacks at Passchendaele began on 26th October 1917, and consisted of a series of carefully planned attacks up the slopes of the ridge. The last push was the early morning of 6th November with the 31st one of three battalions making the attack, and Private Robert Atkinson was killed in action when “in a shell hole just in advance of the “jumping off” trench … he was hit by machine gun fire in the small of the back and died shortly after”.

His wife, Jennie, returned to England in 1921 and settled in Haltwhistle.

His name does not appear on any local war memorial.

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Atkinson