Photo: Marie McNichol
Hamburg (Ohisdorf) Cemetery
In St. Mary's Churchyard is a family headstone which reads:
In loving memory
of
John Leeming Hall
grandson of the aforesaid
who died February 17th 1899
aged 21 years.
Died in the home of eternal life
Also Jasper Leeming Robson
great-grandson of the aforesaid
who died for King & Country
on Oct. 14th 1914 aged 27 years.
interred in Hanover Cemetery
Also Isabell Hall
daughter of the aforesaid
who died June 18th 1919
aged 85 years
Sorrow vanquished, labour ended
Jordan passed.
Also of Hannah Margaret,
Widow of Jasper Robson,
daughter of Isabella Hall
and mother of the above
Jasper Leeming Robson
who died July 22nd 1934
aged 76 years.
Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-
Jasper Leeming Robson was born April 22nd 1887 at Hunmanby, near Filey in Yorkshire, the only son born to Matthew Jasper Robson 1847 a farmer, native of West White Hill, Kirkwhelpington, Newcastle upon Tyne and his wife Hannah Margaret Hall born 1845. His parents married in 1886, Matthew Jasper Robson died aged 61 in 1907. Jasper was educated at the County Council School at Felling and also privately.
Jasper Leeming Robson enlisted in the Army January 18th 1906, serving in Egypt, September 29th 1906 to February 12th 1909. Concluded his service and after the death of his father he and his mother went to live with her widowed mother Isabella Hall at 15, Bolam Terrace, Felling-on-Tyne. Jasper was the only bread winner working as an insurance clerk, to supplement the household income they had a boarder William James Teague a United Methodist minister.
On the outbreak of the Great War he re-enlisted and was assigned as Private 6587 to the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards. August 4th 1914 they were at Chelsea Barracks as part of the 4th (Guards) Brigade, 2nd Division. Mobilised August 12th, as part of the British Expeditionary Force they landed at Le Havre the following day and sent straight into battle at Mons, the first battle fought by the British Army against the Germans on the Western Front, followed by the Great Retreat, after the defeat at Mons and Charleroi, to the River Marne by the B.E.F. and the 5th French Army in August to September 1914.
Private Robson was taken prisoner during this conflict, exact date unknown. Prisoners taken during the first months of WW1 were put to hard labour and used by the Germans to build the infrastructure of the POW camps. Private 6587 Jasper Leeming Robson Coldstream Guards died October 14th 1914 at the No. 1 Reserve Hospital, Hanover, Germany, cause unknown, however many prisoners died from disease, mistreatment and neglect as well as from wounds. He was buried October 17th at Hanover (Limmer) Military Cemetery, Hamburg, which by the end of the war contained the graves of over 300 Allied servicemen who died as prisoners of war. In 1923 it was decided that the graves of Commonwealth servicemen who had died all over Germany should be brought together in four permanent cemeteries. The remains of Private Robson were exhumed and brought into Hamburg (Ohisdorf) Cemetery along with several others and he was reburied with all reverence and military honour, grave V. A. I. At the time of his demise he was 27 years old and single.
His mother who had received all monies due to him, a pension and his awards of the 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal sent to her at 15 Bolam Terrace, Felling, County Durham, commissioned an additional inscription to be added to his military tombstone, paying the sum of 8 shillings and 2 pence, it reads,” Greater Love Hath No Man Than This”.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
Jasper Leeming Robson is remembered at Heworth on H92.03 and at Felling on F32.01 and F32.23
