Lieutenant

Robert ‘Bobby’ West THORNTON

“He was a real good ’un and brave as a lion”

4th (Regular) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment)

9th Brigade, 3rd Division, V Corps, British Expeditionary Force.

Killed in Action, Battle of Bellewaarde Ridge, Ypres, Belgium on 16th June 1915. Aged 19

Robert West Thornton was born in New Town, Uckfield on 26th January 1896, son to Major Robert Lawrence Thornton CBE, DL, JP and Mrs Charlotte Thornton JP of High Cross, Palehouse Common, Framfield. Educated at Eton from May 1909, where he served in the Officer Training Corps, Robert Thornton was accepted into the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in November 1913, Major General Barton securing him a position in the prestigious Royal Fusiliers. By April 1914 Robert was doing so well at Sandhurst, he was made a NCO Cadet. Robert was still officer training when war was declared, not gazetted 2nd Lieutenant until the end of September 1914. Robert was posted to the 14th or 15th (Reserve) Battalion Royal Fusiliers at Dover on 1st October to await an overseas draft and was finally sent to join the famous 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, who had won the first Victoria Crosses of the war, in late November 1914, serving in the Ypres sector after the first battle there. Winter was spent in the snow and then mud of the Ypres Salient. On 11th February, Robert Thornton was promoted to Temporary Lieutenant and it is indicative of the officer casualties during this early period of the war that, in a letter to his parents in April 1915, he stated that apart from the Adjutant he was the longest serving officer in the 4th Royal Fusiliers since they reformed after 1st Ypres. On 5th April 1915 he was Mentioned in Despatches by Field Marshall Sir John French, commander of the BEF. Having served sometime as a Company Commander, in June 1915 Lt. Thornton was promoted to Battalion Machine Gun Officer, a very responsible job for a 19 year old. As he wrote to his parents:

“The chief advantage of my appointment is that I get a jolly good horse, and the pick of the men. We do a big show tomorrow morning. I hope to goodness it will be successful. I think we shall give a good account of ourselves.  (15th June 1915)

He also mentioned in the letter how he had secured the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his platoon sergeant. It was to be the last letter his parents would ever receive from him. On the same day they received the letter, the Thornton family in High Cross also received:

A fellow officer wrote to Major Thornton after the Battle of Bellewaarde:

“He [Robert Thornton] had charge of the machine guns, and was doing very good work when he was shot through the heart. The battalion was in a big charge at the time, and I am sorry to say there are not many left now. We have only six officers that came back; but I am sorry that Lieutenant Thornton was with the killed. He was always looked upon as a very good officer, and all the company are sorry that it has happened.” (Unnamed, reported in Sussex Express, 25th June 1915)

Robert’s Captain wrote for the Commanding Officer (CO), who was wounded in hospital:

 “The Commanding Officer would like you to know that he had sent in your boy’s name for the Military Cross a couple of days before he died and that he knows the General recommended it and sent it on. It will probably not have got through in time” (it did not, sadly)

Later, Robert’s CO wrote

 “We were all most awfully fond of your boy, he was always so cheery and bright; I also had – as his Commanding Officer – the highest opinion of his abilities as an officer, and looked on him as quite in a class by himself. He was very clear headed and quick at taking in a situation, and carrying on and doing the right thing”.

Other officers also wrote to the Thornton’s:

“When I was in Ypres I met a great friend of mine, and he told me of a certain young subaltern in his Battalion, the 4th Royal Fusiliers, who at the age of nineteen was commanding a Company, and doing so well that although there were more senior and older men available the Colonel refused to put them over his head. I asked who the lad was, and was told it was Bobbie Thornton”. Also

“He had the knack of getting men to work and to fight”. And

 “He was a real good ’un and brave as a lion”

On learning of his death, his former master at Eton wrote of him:

“One of the cheeriest souls that ever lived, your boy must have been a treasure to his battalion. He was always so bright and full of fun that a conversation with him always did me good”

Robert was recommended, it appears, for the Military Cross, a junior officer’s gallantry award, by his CO, however, only the Victoria Cross was permitted to be awarded posthumously.

As 3rd Division consolidated their gains, German and British artillery fire swept the battle area, and many of the fallen were lost forever. Lieutenant Robert Thornton’s body was never recovered and today he is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres. 

His family wanted to commemorate him at home. Indeed the whole of Framfield came out in mourning at the news of the loss of Robert. He was the first man killed in the village. Events were cancelled as a mark of respect, including the village show and school prize giving. Major Thornton wished to dedicate a memorial to his eldest son in the local church, St Thomas a Becket’s in Framfield. The dedication included reference to the recommendation for the Military Cross and the vicar at the time, Dr Eyre, contacted the War Office to see if such a recommendation had been made. The War Office replied that only the Victoria Cross could be awarded posthumously, but added that:

“Had this gallant officer survived he would no doubt have been recommended for distinction in recognition of his valuable services for which he was mentioned in the Field Marshall’s Despatch” (War Office, 10th Sep 1915)

Sadly Dr Eyre chose to refuse the memorial because the War Office did not confirm the MC’s recommendation explicitly. Instead the Thornton’s chose to attend the nearby church at Little Horsted for many years and a rood screen was dedicated to Robert Thornton there on the two year anniversary of his death, including a reference to the Commanding Officer’s recommendation for the MC. In 1928, after Dr Eyre’s retirement, a memorial was finally put up in Framfield Church also.

Robert West Thornton had been a member of the Loxfield Masonic Lodge, and is remembered on the Masonic Roll of Honour              

Jim Hastings