Pte 28911 Reginald William Roberts

• Age: 21
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: 8 R LANCS REGT
• Died on Thursday 18th April 1918
• Commemorated at: London Cem Longueval
  Panel Ref: III.C.7

Reginald was born in Liverpool in the summer of 1896 the son of Aloysius Roberts and his wife Annie Maria (nee McCabe). His father was born in Formby, and his mother in Liverpool. His mother, a widow, had married Francis Brown in 1883, and had two daughters, Ethel Grace in 1884 and Florence Gertrude in 1887, the year she was widowed. Aloysius and Annie married in 1893 and had three children:  Reginald had an older sister Ida Marie, born in 1894, and a younger sister Helena May, born in 1898 but died in infancy. 

At the time of the 1901 Census, his parents are living at 22 Green Street, Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, with four children and a maid: Reginald, 4, his sister Ida, and his two half sisters.  His father is a shipping agent’s manager. 

By 1911 they have moved across the Mersey and are at 146 Liscard Road, Wallasey, a large three-storey terraced house opposite Central Park.  His father is 41, a forwarding clerk for a shipping agent, his mother is 43, half sister Florence 22, and sister Ida 16, have no occupation, Reginald is 14, a scholar.  They have two visitors, his newly married half sister Ethel Grace, 25, and her husband Jules Meurs, 27, born in France, a cotton broker’s clerk.

Reginald enlisted at St George's Hall in Liverpool in September when he joined the 18th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 16867. 

From the 23^rd September 1914 he was billeted at Hooton Park Race Course and remained there until 03^rd December 1914 when they moved into the hutted accommodation at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 18th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. He arrived in France, disembarking at Boulogne on 7^th November 1915.

It is not known when he transferred to the 8th Bn King's Own Royal Lancs. Whether with the 18th K.L.R. or the 8th K.O.R.L., Reginald would have taken part in the Battle of the Somme, including the costly attack on Guillemont, then Arras, Passchendaele, and the German Spring Offensive. 

Reginald was killed in action on 18th April 1918, aged 21. He now rests at London Cemetery, Longueval. The CWGC Graves Registration form shows his date of death as 19th April, later amended to the 18th. 

The original London Cemetery at High Wood was begun when 47 men of the 47th Division were buried in a large shell hole on 18 and 21 September 1916. Other burials were added later, mainly of officers and men of the 47th Division who died on 15 September 1916, and at the Armistice the cemetery contained 101 graves. The cemetery was then greatly enlarged when remains were brought in from the surrounding battlefields, but the original battlefield cemetery is preserved intact within the larger cemetery, now known as the London Cemetery and Extension.

The cemetery, one of five in the immediate vicinity of Longueval which together contain more than 15,000 graves, is the third largest cemetery on the Somme with 3,873 First World War burials, 3,114 of them unidentified.

London Cemetery and Extension was used again in 1946 by the Army Graves Service for the reburial of Second World War casualties recovered from various temporary burial grounds, French military cemeteries, small communal cemeteries, churchyards and isolated graves, where permanent maintenance was not possible. These graves are in one central plot at the extreme end of the cemetery, behind the Cross of Sacrifice. Second World War burials number 165.

The original London Cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker, but the site was completely re-modelled after the Second World War by Austin Blomfield.

His parents placed a notice in the Liverpool Echo on 1st May 1918:

“April 18, killed in action, age 21 years, Corporal [sic] Reginald Roberts (Pals), only son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Roberts, of 4, Greenheys Road, Wallasey.” 

All military records show his rank as Private. 

Reginald earned his three medals.  His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £17 went to his father.  His mother, then living at 16 Parkfield Drive, Liscard, was awarded a pension of 10/- a week from November 1918.  After her death his father, at 4 Greenleys Road, Wallasey, continued to receive the pension.  His father died in 1927, aged 56. 

CWGC contacted his father, at 4 Greenleys Road, Wallasey in connection with Reginald’s headstone, but received no response.  It is possible that his father had recently died. 

His brother-in-law Jules Meurs served in the Royal Field Artillery, the Royal Engineers, and the Royal Fusiliers. He survived the war and was discharged as Acting Sergeant.

Reginald William is commemorated on the following Memorials:

Wallasey Civic Memorial 

Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall, Panel 44 Right (Cpl. 18th K.L.R.).

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