Those who gave their lives from Yarm ______________________________________

WILFORD, Robert. 5358 2/Lt 1/5th Yorks attd 13th Bn.

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The following was taken from the Yorkshire Regiment website

Killed in action 23 Nov 1917 aged 23. Fourth son of Robert Levi Wilford, licensee of the Black Bull Hotel, Yarm and Clerk to the Cemetery Committee who had died in 1916 and Jane Eliza his wife. He had been educated at Yarm Grammar School where he won a North Riding Scholarship and entered as a pupil at Middlesbrough High School. He passed junior and senior Cambridge exams, gaining an exemption in the London Matriculation exam. Being successful in winning a training college scholarship he spent two and a half years at University College, Nottingham where he received the Board of Education certificate for Teaching. He passed the Intermediate BA at London University and was reading for the final part when war started (he was posthumously awarded a full BA (war Degree) on 19 Jun 1918). Wilford joined the University OTC in which he remained for a year before being commissioned into the Yorkshire Regiment on 23 Nov 1916. He went to France in Jan 1917. In 1919 his mother presented the Catholic Church in Yarm a beautiful Holy Water Stoup in the form of an angel holding forth the bowl in memory of her son but this no longer survives.

Yarm1914 believe that Robert was born in 1895 in Yarm. His father Robert Levi aged 36 ran the 14 roomed Black Bull Hotel in the High Street assisted by his wife Jane Elisa aged 34. Robert had brothers Bertram aged 9, Stanley aged 6, Henry Leslie aged 1 and sisters Winifred Margery aged 11, Isabel M aged 7, Georgina F aged 4 and Constance May aged 1. In 1898 Angela D joined the family shortly followed in 1900 by Philip Basil and Phylis Sarah in 1902. In 1911 Robert lived at the Black Bull with his parents, 4 brothers, 3 sisters and Mary Pattison Best, a domestic servant. Robert was still at school, unusual for the period. Grammer School lane (the current preparatory school site) was occupied by Yarm Grammar school from 1884 until the 1970s when it was renamed Conyers School (after its founder) and moved to the existing Black Hills Farm site on Green Lane.

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Yarm 1914 Research ________________

The Yarm 1914 Commemoration Group is carrying out research on the soldiers listed. We are finding where they lived in Yarm and will represent the findings in a wall of poppies presentation. More details will be posted on Facebook, Twitter and this web site. If you have any information please contact us. Left click on the picture below.