Private Robert Wyld
60048 Leicestershire Regiment
Robert was born in 1896 in Bagthorpe, Notts son of Joseph Wyld, a coal miner contractor from Ripley and his wife Elizabeth (‘Lizzie’) Hallam. Robert was one of 11 children of whom 10 had survived. He had brothers and sisters Walter, Alice, Joseph, Ernest, James, Sarah Elizabeth, Albert Leslie and George Cyril.
In 1911 the family was living at Church Hill Cottages at Bagthorpe. Robert, aged 14, was employed as a coal miner door tenter and his 13 year old brother Ernest was also working in the mine as a coal miner/ganger.
On 10th February 1917 Robert, then aged 20, married 19 year old Rose Mary Wilbraham at Westwood, St. Mary’s. Both bride and groom were residents of York Avenue, Jacksdale. Witnesses to the marriage were Joseph Wyld (junior), Robert’s elder brother, and Caroline Daisy Wilbraham, the bride’s sister. Later in 1917 their first child George Robert Wyld was born and christened at St. Mary’s.
Robert’s Medal Rolls Index Card indicates that he joined up late in the war, on 29th June 1918. He was stationed in Great Britain and did not see service in a theatre of war overseas. He was discharged from the Army on 17th January 1919 as ‘surplus to military requirements, not having suffered impairment since entry into the service’.
Robert evidently returned to Jacksdale and two further sons were born at York Avenue, Ernest Roy Wyld and Stanley Wyld in the early 1920s, both being christened at St. Mary’s. Robert served on the Committee of the Jacksdale Social Club, Main Road, Jacksdale.
It is possible that Rose Mary died in 1960 at Southwell and Robert died in Mansfield in 1954.