Robert Ernest Walters

Service no. 766772

Lance Corporal, London Regiment (Artists' Rifles), 1st/28th Bn.

Killed in action on 5 September 1918, aged 25

CWGC: "Son of Robert Walters, of 15, Mackay Rd., Clapham, London."

Remembered at Péronne Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme, France

Born in Clapham; lived in Clapham; enlisted in Wandsworth

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Robert Ernest Walters was 17 and working as a law clerk and living in 6 rooms at 15 Mackay Road, Clapham with his parents, Robert Walters, 57, a joiner from Tavistock, Devon, and Eliza Walters, 58, from Hatfield Broad Oak, near Bishop Stortford, Essex. He was an only child, born in Clapham.

Also in the household were Eliza's niece, Ellen Sapsford, 39, from Hatfield Broad Oak, and Charles Rodda, 37, a single engineer from Tiley, Yorkshire, who boarded.

British Army Service Records

Robert Ernest Walters, then working as an engineer's clerk, attested on 10 December 1915 at Wandsworth and was assigned to the Army Reserve. On 16 July 1917 he was judged to be "fit for Class A", although his defective teeth were noted. He stood 5 feet 10 half inches and his chest measured 38 inches, with three inches expansion.

Walters embarked for Boulogne on 1 April 1918, and was posted to his regiment. By 1 July, he was appointed unpaid Lance Corporal. On 17 August he was admitted to hospital with P.U.O. (pyrexia, of unknown origin - fever of an undetermined cause), was discharged to his unit two weeks later and was killed in action 12 days later.

Walters' effects (disc, pipe case, wallter, silver cigarette case, pouch, badges, crucifix, stamp case and diary) were returned to his father. In October 1919 his father completed form W.5080 - Walters' mother had died, and there were no siblings. Ellen Sapsford was listed as Walters' "half-sister" , although she appears to have been a cousin.