Royal Marine Artillery
Joseph William Robins was born in Slimbridge on 25 December 1873 and was the eldest son of George Robins and his wife Jane (née Hicks).
On 6 October 1890 he left his job as a farm labourer to enlist for twelve years service in the Royal Marines (stating his age to be 18 years). He became a gunner with the Royal Marine Artillery on 17 August 1891.
At the end of his contracted service he was re-engaged on 8 October 1902 for a further nine years seeing service in a number of countries and areas including Abyssinia, India, Malabar, Malta and also on board a variety of His Majesty’s warships.
He was appointed Corporal in April 1907.
His second term of service was completed on 5 October 1911 and he was then enrolled into the Royal Fleet Reserve (service number RFR/A/763).
In December 1911 he joined the Midland Railway Police – stating his date of birth as 6 October 1872.
He was recalled to service on 2 August 1914 and was to serve once again with the Royal Marine Artillery.
He was a member of the Royal Marine force that crossed to Ostend in Belgium and was in action against the invading German Army from 27 to 31 August 1914, during which time he was wounded.
Thereafter he was part of the British Expeditionary Force landed at Dunkirk from 7 to 18 October 1914 before returning to Eastney Barracks, Portsmouth.
He would appear to have been stood down from service on 31 December 1914 and died of spotttd fever which is a variant of typhus, on 31 January 1915; he was 41 years old. It is believed that a detachment of Canadian soldiers may have brought the disease with them when they came to play football with the marines.
On 22 September 1899 Joseph had married Eliza Catherine Bevans, who came from Pembrokeshire whilst serving on HMS Thunderer, which was based there at that time.
At the time of the 1901 and the 1911 Census the couple are recorded as living at Eastney, Portsmouth. Their first child, a son, Rudolph, was born in late 1900 and by the time of the Great War the couple had seven children.
It would appear that although having spent most of her married life in Eastney, his widow later came to live in Cambridge, Gloucestershire, near to the village of Slimbridge and she never remarried.
Joseph was buried in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist, Slimbridge where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave.
Research by Graham Adams 20 March 2016 (revised) with acknowledgement to Slimbridge Local History Society’s book Slimbridge Remembers’ published in 2014 to coincide with the centenary of the Great War, for some of the above information)