Lance Corporal Charles Graham Robertson VC MM - David Carter

The August meeting welcomed the return of David Carter for his fourth presentation to the branch. This time concentrating on Lance Corporal Charles Graham Robertson V.C.;M.M.

Charting his subject’s life, from cradle to grave and showing the depth of the research undertaken in following the path of what turned out to be an unassuming and private man.

Charles’s early life was dysfunctional from the very beginning when he was born to an unmarried lady and brought up by her sister and husband, with unexpected and surprising twists and turns encountered. His military career processed through service in the Imperial Yeomanry during the Second Anglo- Boer War to the sheer courage and resourcefulness shown in WW1. Fighting with the 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, he was awarded his Military Medal in 1917 and the Victoria Cross in March of 1918, when during an engagement in Belgium, he remained at his post, firing his Lewis gun and killing many of the enemy when all around him had been killed; although being severely wounded during the latter action he managed to crawl back with his gun when all his ammunition had been expended. His life was despaired of, but he survived and returned to his pre-war civilian position as a clerk with the London Northern and Eastern Railway. He married when aged 60 and served as a sergeant in the Home Guard in WW2.

This presentation was a classic lesson on how to research an individual through all aspects of their life, personal and military. Few questions being asked at the usual Q.and A. session accenting the thorough mass of information which David had amassed and presented.

(Shirley Penman)