Menin Gate Ypres

Photo: Geordie at War Project

In Gateshead (Saltwell) Cemetery is a family headstone which reads:

In
Loving Memory of
William,
the beloved husband of
Sarah Brown
who fell asleep on March 24th 1913
aged 69 years.
Also the above Sarah Brown
who fell asleep on March 3rd 1920
aged 77 years.
Also Robert Henry,
son of the above
46 Canadians killed at Passchendaele Ridge
October 26th 1917, aged 46 years.
also George Percy
Grandson of the above
10 Canadians killed at Vimy Ridge
Oct. 9th 1917 aged 20 years.
Also Sarah Annie
daughter of the above
who fell asleep on Jan. 14th 1960
aged ?71 years.

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Robert Henry Browne was the son of William and Sarah Browne and was born in Cambridge Place, West Hartlepool on 6th May 1871 and baptised at Cambridge Place Wesleyan Methodist Chapel five weeks later. Ten years later the family were living in Eden Place and Robert then had older siblings John and Mary Anne, and younger siblings George, Ellen, Joseph and Wilfred. By 1891 he was living with his married sister Mary and her husband and young daughter in Hendon, Sunderland and he was working as a warehouseman.

In 1907 Robert sailed for Canada, to be joined in September of the following year by his wife Mary and two daughters Laura, aged 4 and 2-year-old Doris, on a farm in Edmonton, Alberta. The 1916 census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta shows Robert and his two daughters living in Edmonton with housekeeper Eva Taylor, his wife having died the previous year, and he was working as an optician.

When Robert enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force on 21st June 1916 he named fifteen-year-old Laura as his next of kin and made out his military will in favour of both Laura and Doris, their housekeeper Eva was named as the girls’ guardian. Private 911053 was attached to the 196th Battalion and sailed for England on the SS Southland on 11th November, being posted to the camp at Seaford, near Brighton on the south coast, where in January 1917 the battalion was absorbed into the 9th Reserve Battalion. Promoted to Corporal in February, Robert reverted to the ranks when he proceeding overseas with the 46th Reserve Battalion on 24th April.

Fighting in the vicinity of Passchendaele at about 4pm on 26th October 1917 Robert was shot through the head and killed by a bullet from the rifle of an enemy sniper, and was believed to have been buried in Decline Copse by the 44th Battalion.

Robert’s two daughters returned to England in March 1919, after the hostilities had ended, to live with their aunt, Robert’s unmarried sister Annie, in Gateshead.

His nephew George Percy also died in WW1.

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 Browne