Robert Michael BYRNES

17212, Corporal, b. 1887, Stanningley, Leeds d. Mon. 5th August 1915, (aged 28).

Although he went by the name Robert his actual name is Michael and was recorded as such on all his military documentation as Michael BYRNE not BYRNES. The park memorial shows his name as R.M Byrnes. He was the son of a soldier, also Michael, and was born in Thayetmyo, Burmah, India in 1887. Thayetmyo was a port and a garrison town on the right (western) bank of the Irrawaddy River and was the headquarters of a British Regiment.

A man whose details have proved extremely difficult to trace, Robert as he was called, was a Corporal in the Royal Field Artillery. Normally if the rank of Corporal was given to a man serving in the Royal Artillery it meant he was attached to the Brigade headquarters, and so in most cases casualties were lighter as HQ was always behind the front line.

This had been the case for Robert as he was a battery clerk for the 87th Field Battery, 12th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery but as he wrote to his wife Alice in late July 1915:
“You will be pleased to know that I have given up duty as a battery clerk and have gone back to duty on the gun so there is a prospect of promotion.”

Robert was a regular soldier at the start of the war, having enlisted in June 1902 but was discharged at some point, so he must have been an old hand when he re-enlisted as war broke out in August 1914. His medal record shows he received the Victory Medal. The British Medal and the 14 Star, it lists his rank as Bomb? presumably Bombardier given his role, undernetah is shows Cpl as Corporal. Little is known of the circumstances of Roberts death but he is buried west of Ypres at Hop Store Cemetery.

Before going back into the army Robert was time-keeper at Bradford Technical College, having being appointed on 13th August 1913 after a unanimous vote in his favour by the committee there. They stated that it was because of his ‘strong bearing and character’. He was also a well-known speaker in missionary circles and used to regularly give talks across the city: this might go part way to explaining his inclusion on the church memorial.

There is only one Byrnes on the roll of honour who died, and he was recorded as living at 21, Sunderland Street (Halifax), dying in August 1915. This in itself is controversial, as Halifax was not normally included on the Roll, and as his wife’s address is given as 21, Sunderland Road, Manningham.

Robert had lived in various addresses in Bradford though; in 1906 his marriage record to Alice Maud Loyte shows him living at 16 Tennyson Place and the 1911 census finds him living with his wife, Alice, their baby Eva and Alices mother at 55 Institute Road, Eccelshill. Quite what the connection is with Clayton and for him to be remembered is unknown.

The 1901 census shows his wife, Alice Maud living at 104 Wilfred Street in Bradford and interestingly shows her birth place as Canada. After the war, in April 1919 Alice remarried a George E Lang in Hackney, London and as Mrs Lang moved to Ontario, Canada.

Robert and Alice’s daughter Eva, who was born in Bradford, left England bound for Canada in 1923 aged 15. On the 1939 register Eva is shown as married and living in Bradford.