William Kirby and Brenda McMahon have submitted the following:-
Robert was born at Workington, Cumberland on September 16th 1899 the son of parents Robert and Catherine (known as Kate) nee Mooney. The couple married at Crossthwaite on May 8th 1896 and went on to have 4 children who all survived childhood. Robert’s siblings were Harold, Mary and Kate.
1901 census shows the family living at 70 Beeby Street, Workington. At that time his father was working as an iron worker.
By 1911 the family unit was much the same except they had now moved to a 4 roomed house at 27 Ashfield Road, Gosforth, Newcastle. Living with them was a retired miner, Anthony Gibson, who boarded with the family. Robert was still at school although older brother, Harold, was working in at the mines as a pony driver.
Robert joined the Royal Navy for 12 years' service on September 14th 1917. His records show him to have been 5’8” tall with brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion. He had a scar of his left cheek.
His first ship was the Powerful on which he served as a boy sailor then he served on several others including Royal Oak, Vivid, Boadicea and the Attentive. His last ship was HMS Shincliffe, a trawler.
Unfortunately, there was an accident whilst with the Shincliffe. The Court of Enquiry held on May 17th 1919 found that :-
“Swindle was drowned by the capsizing of the port lifeboat of HMS Shincliffe when it was being lowered to rescue a man who had been thrown overboard by accident from the starboard lifeboat whilst the ship was proceeding to sea on the morning of 15/05/1919. They considered that no blame is attributable to anyone in the matter and that all possible steps were taken to save life.”
Robert’s body was not recovered for burial.
