Pte 57452 Robert Niven

His mother, living in Maxwell Terrace, Bridge of Weir, made enquiries with the International Red Cross, but was informed on 18th June 1918 that they held no information on Robert.  However, his identity disc and paybook were sent in on 17th May 1918 from a German field hospital to the German Central Office for personal effects, with no further details.  This information was received by the ICRC on 10th July 1918, but apparently not communicated to the family, the information being too old. 

 

This suggests that Robert was found wounded by the Germans, date unknown, and died of his wounds in a German field hospital.  He was buried by the Germans in Croix Molignaux German Cemetery (10 km northwest of Ham).  

 

In 1919 when graves were concentrated, a Special Kipling Memorial was erected in Ham British Cemetery,  which reads, “To the memory of these twenty British soldiers who were buried by the enemy in 1918 in Croix Molignaux German Military Cemetery, but whose graves are now lost.  Their glory shall not be blotted out.”  Robert’s date of death is given as 09th April 1918 on the Graves Registration Report.

He now rests at Ham British Cemetery, France where the family inscription on his headstone reads:

“LOVED & REMEMBERED.”

In January, February and March 1918, the 61st (South Midland) Casualty Clearing Station was posted at Ham, but on the 23rd March the Germans, in their advance towards Amiens, crossed the Somme at Ham, and the town remained in German hands until the French First Army re-entered it on the following 6th September.

Ham British Cemetery was begun in January 1918 by the 61st Casualty Clearing Station as an extension of Muille-Villette German Cemetery.

In 1919 the graves in the British Cemetery were regrouped and others were added from the following sites:-

HAM COMMUNAL CEMETERY GERMAN EXTENSION (the "Neuer Friedhof Chaunystrasse"); CROIX-MOLIGNAUX GERMAN CEMETERY (March and April 1918); ESMERY HALLON CHURCHYARD; VILLERS ST. CHRISTOPHE CHURCHYARD (March 1918); EPPEVILLE COMMUNAL CEMETERY GERMAN EXTENSION (March 1918); and ST. SULPICE COMMUNAL CEMETERY.

Ham British Cemetery contains 485 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 218 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 14 soldiers, believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of 39 casualties known to have been buried in other cemeteries whose graves were not found.

Other German Cemeteries in the area were HAM CHURCHYARD GERMAN EXTENSION; MUILLE-VILLETTE GERMAN CEMETERY and MUILLE-VILLETTE COMMUNAL CEMETERY GERMAN EXTENSION. The British Graves from these three were moved to either HAM BRITISH CEMETERY or ROYE NEW BRITISH CEMETERY.

MUILLE-VILLETTE GERMAN CEMETERY adjoins the West side of the British Cemetery. It now contains the graves of 1,113 identified and 420 unidentified German soldiers.

His mother received Robert’s Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £14-10s.  Soldiers’ Effects gives date of death as “on or since 21/3/1918”.

 

His father who enlisted on 13th November 1915, and survived the war, died in 1936, aged 59.  

 

The pension card, in the name of his mother, Mrs. Robert Niven, Maxwell Terrace, shows Missing between 21st - 28th March 1918.  The pension card later shows the address 64 Houston Road, Bridge of Weir, later changed to c/o Mrs. Miller, c/o Valeria House Farm, Peekskill, NY, USA.

 

His widowed mother, 59, is found on a passenger list on the Caledonia sailing from Glasgow on 18th February 1938.  She gives her next of kin in Scotland as her daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson, 25 Freeland Drive, Bridge of Weir, destination her daughter, Mrs. Margaret Miller, Valeria Home Farm, Peekskill, NY.

 

The 1940 U.S. census finds her living with married daughter Margaret, her husband and daughter, also called Elizabeth, in Furnace Dock Road, Cortlandt, Westchester, NY. She died in 1962.

 

Robert is commemorated on the Scottish National War Memorial.