Early Life :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

No Data has been recorded for the final action, because none has yet been found. If you have any information to offer, please contact the Project Team so we can add.

Detail :

Service No: 67601. Royal Flying Corps, 59th Squadron.

Probate ROBERTS William Henry of Birchgrove Usk Monmouthshire died 3 December 1917 in France on active service Probate London 14 March to Ernest Edwards Roberts chemist and Griffith Thomas Davies solicitor. Effects £1022 11s 8d.

Probate was revoked after a further grant made 15th June 1918, bud this time to a Baptist minister, David Roberts, which on the face of it looks like family/father asserting authority. Effects £1244 8s. 2d.

An article in Welsh in Seren Cymru on the 22nd March 1918 records the following, (which has OCR issues and therefore fragmented translation):

"WILLIAM, HENRY ROBERTS. I think that, with your kindness, the law will give you little space for a few words about the above pup in the Star. His busy life ended in Fffcainp Riiagfyjr 3 a year. entertainment- has been, over the course of twenty-two hours. When he finished his job as Wireless Operator, a shell came crashing down to him, and a piece went, two irons! his Steel Helmiet to be paid and his brain. j He fell upon his face without pronouncing a caper, or letting the sigh cry. While a doctor and assistants are near to serve larno, yir oood: his spirit is gone, never to return. He was buried the second day in (a British hearse in the battle of 'BXodeu with the larger paw: st, when he was knighted by a disciple Captain, and the Helmiet Steel was laid on his grave there his loved ones were coming to see a small place and his grave The battle of Isyrthiocld: he was the fiercest since the outbreak of the war, say those who have been out since the beginning. The following year, he sat and paskxjd to go to Paddington GWR Station, as a clerk, but felt that he was a clerk at Talog at the age of fourteen. he was young for me (a boy to London, though Mr. Jones, Lanoasterian School, Carmarthen, was strongly opposed to him going, but his mother and son persuaded him not to go, and that was the case) Wlocli then went to the Old College School, which was a favor 1 (he wrote about the: London Matric. Before he was fifteen. His two teachers this tynor were g his great admiration was long overdue by: w, seff Mr. Jones, Lancasterian School and Parol1. Wedros Jones, M.A., Old College School. While trying to reach his eleventh birthday, he came in contact with Skerry's Course for Civil Service. He liked it, went and sat the Cardiff business, and went in with five very many applicants. He adjusted himself in. One month at Six six for full pay, so that he was the first to receive a salary full of those who went in at the same time as him. After three years in Cardiff he turned to the Anglo-American "Cable. He was in London with that Company for three years. I had a lot of proposals there to stay - he tended to be a man (the / young4 under the Government. Exam. Extended to live in telegraph- ifSft i (South Africa. He exceeded everyone in the kingdom) he did it, he doubted; he did the same thing a second time - he was called there - he did the third time to satisfy the curiosity of this work — he drove five words per minute a minute more than another njelb for a quarter of an hour three times. But as there was a war between this country and the Boers, his mother would not wish him to go there, and he soon came to Wales and settled in Aberdare. goodbye, Frederick PLit), she died just three years ago, had been married nine years ago, and left four little boys at her place, who are now left with no mother or father. At his request, he joined the army as Wireless Operator in the Royal Flying Corps. Although thousands had gone before him, they all exceeded speed, so it was needed at the moment he died and died. Some said he had found it in the,, irritatingly strongest of him — in his foodii — the man who had the chief knowledge of water as the water ox. Miathemiatics was his work for him. He was a master of Shorthand, Typewriting, Modeling u- that is what those who used to call him said, along with many other things. J He was a member at Bethania- Talog, Tabernacle, Cardiff, 'Safem, "Senator, Ciastle Street London, Carmel, Aberdare, lac. At Usk Baptist Church in Usk. He did his part in them. generous to religion, kind to all. Dr. Williams, former Editor of the 'Star, "came to his grave for his kindness to him when he visited London. He has finished his busy life and is just over 36 years old. age. His two brothers are in the army again — one in India and the 'Hall in France. The Conscious only. and the husband of Ibleth and Tha, at the time of the 'Jb'ydd terfyii on this part. The father and mother, Mir. ia Mrs. Roberts, Pastors wishes to acknowledge graciously all those who delivered from each domain sympathetic letters and. they in their distress of losing in the passage of their dear son Wm-. HenU,."

Masonic :

William is recorded as a Civil Servant from Aberdare upon his initiation in 1915. His war service is recorded in the contribution record which ends "Killed in Action 2nd Dec 1917." He is listed on the 1921 Book and the 1933 Scroll, as a Wireless Operator, but some sources quote him as an "Airman".

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley