Pte 202845 Edward Roberts

• Age: 40
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 5th July 1917
• Commemorated at: Railway Dugout B.g. Zillebeke
  Panel Ref: Sp.Mem.F6

Edward Roberts was born in the December quarter of 1876 at Walton on the Hill, Liverpool the son of Edward and Alice(nee Spencer) Roberts

He had one brother, William, who was born in 1875.

The 1891 Census shows the family living at Springfield Square, Kirkdale, Liverpool. His father Edward  is 42, born 1849 and is a carter who was born in Liverpool. His wife Alice aged 40, born 1851 in Liverpool has no occupation. They have two children at the time of the Census, William aged 17, born 1874 is a general labourer and Edward aged 16, born 1875 is a shop boy. 

Edward married Eva Baldwin at St. Leonard's C. of E. Church, Bootle on 16th April 1905. Both he and his wife gave their home address as 5 Beattie Street, Bootle.

The 1911 Census shows the family living at 51 Stanley Road, Bootle.  Edward was shown as night porter at the Compton Hotel, Church Street, Liverpool when the 1911 was taken. His wife and two children, Harry and Constance Lena Roberts, are also present along with Eve Roberts' mother and step-father, John and Margaret Horrigan. 

He enlisted in Liverpool on the 10^th November 1914, and gave his age as 22 years and his occupation as a clerk. He was five feet three inches tall, weighed  120 lbs, 35" chest, sallow complexion, eyes brown and black hair.

He was serving in the 19th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 202845 when he was killed in action on 05th July, 1917.

He now rests at Railway Dugout Burial Ground, Zillebeke, Belgium.

Railway Dugouts Burial Ground is 2 Km west of Zillebeke village, where the railway runs on an embankment overlooking a small farmstead, which was known to the troops as Transport Farm.  Burials began there in April 1915 and continued until the Armistice, especially in 1916 and 1917, when Advanced Dressing Stations were located in the dugouts and the farm.  The names "Railway Dugouts" and "Transport Farm" were both used for the cemetery.  In the summer of 1917 a considerable number were obliterated by shell fire before they could be marked.  

The commune of Zillebeke contains many Commonwealth cemeteries as the front line trenches ran through it during the greater part of the First World War.

At the time of the Armistice, more than 1,700 graves in the cemetery were known and marked. Other graves were then brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries in the vicinity, and a number of the known graves destroyed by artillery fire were specially commemorated. The latter were mainly in the present Plots IV and VII.

The cemetery now contains 2,459 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 430 of the burials are unidentified and 261 casualties are represented by special memorials. Other special memorials record the names of 72 casualties buried in Valley Cottages and Transport Farm Annexe Cemeteries whose graves were destroyed in later fighting.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Edward's grave has the inscription on his headstone:

“THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT”

This phrase was decided upon by Rudyard Kipling and is used when the burial place of a soldier is not known. It is a biblical reference from Ecclesiasticus 44:13 which reads in full as: "Their seed shall remain forever, and their glory shall not be blotted out". 

His death was reported in the Liverpool Echo of 24th July 1917;

ROBERTS - July 5, killed in action, Private Edward Roberts, King's (Liverpool Regiment), late of the Compton Hotel, Liverpool. (Sadly missed by sorrowing wife and children) - 51 Stanley Road, Bootle.

The Bootle Times dated 27^th July, 1917 reported:

A DOUBLE BEREAVEMENT

LOCAL SALVATIONIST KILLED IN ACTION.

Pte. Edward Roberts, K.L.R., formerly of the Compton Hotel, Liverpool, was killed in action on July 5th. He was brother-in-law of Mrs. Roberts, 51, Stanley-Road, Bootle, whose brother was killed in action just over two years ago. Pte. Roberts was born at Walton in 1876, and as a boy attended Rice-Lane School. He was a member of the Salvation Army, and was greatly interested in football, cricket, and other forms of sport.

According to the obituary which appeared in the Bootle Times on the 27th July 1917 Edward was the brother in law of Mrs Roberts of 51 Stanley Road, Bootle but he was, in fact, her husband.

Soldiers Effects to widow Eva

Edward is also commemorated on the Linacre Methodist Mission, Bootle.

As reported in the Bootle Times, Eva's half-brother, John Horrigan, died in the Dardanelles in 1915. He served with the Howe Battalion, Royal Naval Division from the 22nd August 1914 until he died of wounds at the 11th Casualty Clearing Station in the Dardanelles on the 11th June 1915 aged 21. He had received a bullet wound which perforated his abdomen exactly a week earlier on the 4th June 1915.

Liverpool Echo dated 4^th August, 1915 reported:

AT THE DARDANELLES.

Mr. and Mrs. Horrigan, Stanley-road, Bootle, have received the news that their only son, Petty Officer John Horrigan, has died in hospital from wounds received in action at the Dardanelles on June 11. He was twenty-one years of age, and had enlisted just before the outbreak of war.

We currently have no further information on Edward Roberts, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.