Robert Collet Hampton
- Born: Feb 1875, Redfern District, New South Wales, Australia 1 2
- Died: Jun 10, 1917, Messines Ridge, Ypres, Belgium at age 42 3
- Buried: Jun 1917, Ypres, Belgium 4 5
 Cause of his death was Killed in Action.
General Notes:
Burial from Ancestry.com - Ypres (Ieper), Arrondissement Ieper, West Flanders (West-Vlaanderen), Belgium
Burial Notes:
The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), Belgium
The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave.
The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936. [The lions have been returned to Belgium as an Australian gift to the city of Ypres]
Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign.
Some of his life's milestones were:
He was living at Kanowna, Western Australia, Australia in 1901/1906. 6
Robert was living at Lowes Street Kanowna, Western Australia, Australia in 1910/1916 7
He was serving in the AIF, 11th Battalion, 15th Reinforcement enlisting as a Private on Dec 13, 1915 in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. 4 His unit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A38 Ulysses on 1 April 1916 for England.
He was living at Bardoc, Western Australia, Australia in 1917. 8 this was published in the 1917 Electoral Roll after Robert enlisted and was overseas in France
He was working as miner in Bardoc, Western Australia, Australia in 1917 8 This was published in the 1917 Electoral Roll after Robert enlisted and was overseas in France
He signed a will on Jun 4, 1917. 9 as a condition of his enlistment in the AIF,
WILL 4062
In the event of my death I give Ten pounds sterling to my Aunt Miss E. C. Hampton, Alresford Lodge. Shanklin, Isle of Wight, England and the remaining part of my property and money to my Sister Mrs. M. E. Thompson, 1469 Boundary Street, Kalgoorlie in the State of West Australia.
Signature Robt. C. Hampton,
Rank and Unit Pte.No.4806.
Date June 4th 1917. 51st Battalion, A.I.F.
Certified to be a true copy of the Will. of No.4806 Pte. Hampton, R.C.51st Battalion, A.I.F.
|
