BORN HULL 1895. ONLY SON OF EMMA & SISTER ELSIE LIVED 10 WITTY STREET. A BLACK LEAD PACKER. WIFE ROSETTA (SMITH) LIVED AT 34 LIVERPOOL STREET, HULL, 314 HAWTHORNE AVENUE, HULL AND 79 ARTHUR STREET, WITHERNSEA (WAR PENSION ADDRESS).
HE ENLISTED, AT HULL, ON 18/12/1915. EMBARKED 21/05/1916. JOINED 12TH EYR 16/06/1916. KILLED IN ACTION 13/11/1916, AGED 21.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE ROBERT WILLIAM SHARPE 21530. Born in 1895 Robert was one of two children to Emma Sharpe. The three of them lived with Robert’s grandparents at 34 Liverpool Street, Hull. A Packer by trade, he enlisted at City Hall on 18th December 1915 just weeks before the Conscription Bill was passed, and he would have been forced to join the army as that most despised of soldier- the conscript. Many men chose to volunteer in December 1915 for just this reason. Robert was mobilized in January 1916 and shipped for France on 21st May, but not before he had married Rosetta Smith of 314 Hawthorn Avenue. He was killed in action in front of the ruins of Serre during the last fateful act of the Somme campaign, wading through mud and mist to some imaginary goal protected by machine guns and heavy artillery. His body was never recovered, and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial; he was 21 years old. Either blown to smithereens or slipping out of sight through several feet of fetid mud- this was how Emma Sharpe lost her only son.
