Robert Lawrie NICOLSON

Robert Lawrie NICOLSON Update Details

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NICOLSON, Robert Lawrie

Service Number:	1809
Enlisted:	8 August 1915
Last Rank:	Private
Last Unit:	13th Infantry Battalion
Born:	Dunoon, Argyle, Scotland, 10 September 1879
Home Town:	Sydney, City of Sydney, New South Wales
Schooling:	Not yet discovered
Occupation:	Plumber
Died:	Wounds, France, 8 August 1916, aged 36 years
Cemetery:	Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension Plot VII, Row E, Grave 57
Memorials:	Haymarket NSW Government Railway and Tramway Honour Board

World War 1 Service

8 Aug 1915:	Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 1809, 13th Infantry Battalion
17 Dec 1915:	Involvement Private, 1809, 30th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '16' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Berrima embarkation_ship_number: A35 public_note: ''
17 Dec 1915:	Embarked Private, 1809, 30th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Berrima, Sydney
8 Aug 1916:	Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 1809, 13th Infantry Battalion

Help us honour Robert Lawrie Nicolson's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Geoffrey Gillon

His next of kin was his sister, Jane Nicolson of Kirn, a village in Argyll and Bute in the Scottish Highlands on the west shore of the Firth of Clyde on the Cowal peninsula. It now forms part of the continuous habitation between Dunoon and Hunters Quay, where the Holy Loch joins the Firth of Clyde. It originally had its own pier and was a regular stop for the Clyde steamer services, bringing holidaymakers to the town, mostly from the Glasgow area.

He is one of 7 Australian Great War casualties honoured on the Dunoon War Memorial There are also three New Zealand casualties honoured on this memorial.

Biography contributed by John Oakes

Robert Lowrie NICOLSON, (Service Number 1809) was born on 10th September 1879 at Dunoon, Scotland. He first worked for the NSW Government Railways as a gas fitter at Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops from 2nd July 1912, but was dispensed with on 1st January 1913, only to be employed again on 13th January, though now on a temporary basis. This arrangement remained in place until he joined the Expeditionary Forces on 8th August 1915. The NSWGR was, however, at that time willing to pay the difference between his railway pay and his military pay.
Nicholson enlisted at Holdsworthy the same day. He claimed to have been apprenticed for seven years to Gas Reid of Kirn and gave his ‘trade or calling’ as ‘Plumber’. As he was not married, he nominated his sister (Miss) Jane Nicolson living in Argyllshire as his next of kin. He was llotted to the 2nd Reinforcements to the 30th Battalion. He embarked HMAT ‘Berrima’ at Sydney on 17th December 1915. He was taken on the strength of the 13th Battalion at Zeitoun (Egypt) on 4th March 1916. After further training he embarked at Alexandria on 1st June to join the British Expeditionary Force through Marseilles, where he passed on 8th June. Only two months later he was wounded in action by shrapnel injury to his brain and died of those injuries on 8th August at the 4th Australian Field Ambulance, which was located somewhere in France.
He was buried in the Military Cemetery at Warloy-Baillon, five miles west of Albert, by Rev W W Thomas who was attached to the Special Hospital at Warloy-Baillon.

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