Robert Charles Benjamin Wright was born in North Creake, Norfolk in 1898 to John and Ellen Wright. He was their second child and first son and Robert had ten siblings who were; Annie, the eldest, then Ellen (Nellie) Edith, Olive Agnes, George John, Winnie Mildred, Lily Amelia, Harry Leslie and Ernest Edward. Two other siblings died in infancy around 1905.

Robert and his sister Annie had been born in Norfolk just before his father John moved the family to Sutton in Surrey to take up a position as a Gas Stoker. By 1901 they are all living at 14 Montague Terrace on Collingwood Road in Sutton.

By 1911, the family had moved again but only a short distance to 10 Sorrento Road, Sutton which was less than a mile away. Robert now thirteen years old had just left school and started work with a local grocer as a Cellar Man. His father is still working with the local Sutton Gas Company as a Mechanical Stoker.

On the outbreak of war both Robert and his father enlisted. In his father’s case he attested at Sutton on the 29th August 1914 and enlisted with the Royal Garrison Artillery. John was just over thirty-eight years old and had previous service with the Prince of Wales Own Royal Garrison Artillery. However, his service this time was short-lived, and he was discharged on the 21st September 1914 having been declared medically unfit for service. He was diagnosed as suffering from chronic Bright’s Disease, a kidney disease frequently associated with diabetes.

Robert attested at Kingston-upon-Thames on the 13th August 1914 only nine days after Britain declared war on Germany. His enthusiasm to enlist meant that he falsified his date of birth and when he joined the East Surrey Regiment he stated his age as “18 years and 264 days” when in reality he was still only sixteen. Officially recruits had to be eighteen and would not be eligible for overseas service until they were nineteen, so Robert’s very specific statement of his age would make him eligible to join immediately and to go to the front in just over one hundred days. It is estimated that as many as 250,000 underage recruits enlisted and fought at the Front in the Great War. The youngest, believed authenticated, was twelve-year-old Sidney Lewis who fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Robert was accepted and was duly posted to the 3rd Battalion East Surreys at the training unit in Kingston-upon-Thames on the 14th August 1914. Following his basic training we was assigned to 2nd Battalion East Surreys and disembarked in France on the 16th March 1915 and joined his comrades four days later at Locre in Belgium.

The 2nd Battalion, part of the 85th Brigade of the 28th Division, was heavily engaged in the Ypres sector almost immediately after being moved up the line for the first time in January 1915. A and C Companies were almost annihilated and shortly after, C and D Companies suffered almost as badly. After only five days of fighting barely 200 men remained of the 1000, who had disembarked in France such a short time before.

Robert saw action around Ypres during April and on the 29th he received a gunshot wound in his right arm on what the Battalion War Diary records as; “A quiet day. Casualties six killed two died of wounds seven wounded.” Robert went down the line for treatment and after a short period of recovery was back at the Front. His wounding led to a distressing communication to his parents and he was reported killed, before the War Office corrected the error and wrote to his family in June 1915 to confirm that Robert was still alive.

Their relief was short-lived however, and by September Robert saw action at the Battle of Loos. Four days after the start of the battle he was killed in action whilst counter-attacking the Hohenzollern redoubt. He died on Wednesday 29th September 1915.

Robert had never lived in Hemel Hempstead, but his mother and seven of his siblings had moved there in 1917 after his father had died. It is not clear why they moved to Hemel Hempstead but, by 1919 they lived at 18 Cherry Bounce just off the High Street. Regardless, Robert’s mother Ellen ensured that he was commemorated on the town War Memorial which was dedicated in 1921

His name is incorrectly recorded on the war memorial and is listed as "Robert G.B. Wright" instead of "Robert C. B. Wright".

Robert is Remembered with Honour at the Loos Memorial, Pas de Calais, France on Panel 67.

He was only 17 years old when he died.

Robert was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.