Robert William Coxhill, known as Bob, was born in Northchurch, Hertfordshire on Friday, 4th March 1881 and baptised in Berkhamsted on Sunday, 10th July in the same year. Robert was the second son and fourth child born to Charles Coxhill and Ruth Impey, who had sixteen children in total over a period of twenty-nine years. This impressive brood were: Mary Ellen (1875), John William Edward (1876), Sarah Jane (1878), Robert William (1881), Emma Jane (1883), George Edward (1885), Elizabeth Ethel (1887), Minnie (Mary) Elizabeth (1890), Jess (1892), James (1894), Lilly (1896), Annie and Jennie (1898), Willie (Charles William) (1901) and Dorothy Bessie (1904). Jess and Emma Jane died in 1894 aged two and one respectively, Jennie in 1898 days after birth, and John in 1911 aged thirty-five. Bob’s brother George also fought in the Great War with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and died as a result of his wounds in 1920. His biography appears on this site. James also served with the RAMC and survived the conflict.

The Coxhill family came to Boxmoor near Hemel Hempstead, from Berkhamsted in April 1891 and settled at 84 St John’s Road, from where ten-year-old Bob went to Boxmoor JMI school. The school admissions log recorded that Bob left Boxmoor to return to Berkhamsted in December 1891, although his family remained. It is possible he went back to his old school and stayed with a relative until he completed his education, finally leaving school in 1894. Bob joined the army on his seventeenth birthday, 3rd March 1898, although he claimed to be eighteen which was the legal age for military service in the Regular Army. He had been working as a ‘Labourer’ at the time and was already a member of the Militia, having joined the 7th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. His experience there may have convinced him that a regular soldier’s life was more attractive than labouring, so he enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers. During his four years on active service, his tours of duty took him to Malta, Gibraltar and finally Egypt, before he returned to England, where he transferred to the Army Reserve in February 1902. He remained in the Reserve for a further twelve years, before being discharged in April 1914.

Bob married Lizzie (Elizabeth) Barford on Saturday, 7th October 1905, in St John the Evangelist church in Boxmoor. Lizzie had been born in Luton, Bedfordshire and it appears that she and Bob met through her work. Her father was a ‘Straw Hat Maker’ and Lizzie worked as a ‘Finisher’ and made regular visits to the straw plait market in Hemel Hempstead to purchase raw materials. By the time they married, Bob was working as an attendant at Leavesden Asylum where he would go on to train as a nurse. He and Lizzie soon had their own family and by the time Bob completed his first term in the Army in 1910, they lived with their first three children at 19 Asylum Cottages, Abbotts Langley. Their children were: Doris Evelyn born in 1905, Ivy Ruth in 1907, Gladys Irene in 1910, followed by Muriel Caroline in 1911 and finally their only son John Charles who arrived in 1913. Gladys died when she was only two-years-old in 1912.

As an experienced soldier and reservist, Bob was immediately called up for service on the outbreak of war. He attested at Watford in September 1914 and re-enlisted with the Army, this time with the Royal Army Medical Corps, where his skills as a ‘Male Nurse’ would be put to best use. He was posted to 80th Field Ambulance and sent to France on the 18th September 1915, arriving at Le Havre three days later. Within a month of disembarking, Bob transferred to 4th Casualty Clearing Station (4th CCS) in the field and went to Beauval to the west of the Somme Valley.

Bob had been in France for just over three months when he showed early symptoms of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, which his Army Medical Records later described: “Originated Dec. 1915 at Beauvais [Beauval]. No previous history of chest trouble. No family history of tubercule. Cough commenced while on duty at Clearing Station. Right lung upper lobe and part of middle lobe involved. T.B. present in sputum. Result of active service, exposure and hardship. Permanent. Total incapacity.” Bob was finally diagnosed with TB in his right lung and admitted to a Base Hospital on the 2nd April 1916 and shortly afterwards transferred back to England. He spent nineteen days from the 8th to the 26th April in a military hospital in Hampstead, London being treated for his condition. He was declared permanently unfit for military service on the 28th April. He was finally discharged from the Army on the 10th May 1916 and sent home to Abbotts Langley and his family.

Bob was unable to return to work and for the next year, he was examined regularly by the military authorities who reconfirmed his condition and incapacity. At this time there was no effective treatment or cure for tuberculosis and when the secondary form had taken hold, as in Bob’s case, often it was simply a matter of time. This proved to be the outcome for Bob and he died on Monday, 24th September 1917 from his illness. The Hemel Gazette published an account of his funeral. The piece incorrectly reported the date of his death and attributes the cause to the fact he was “…badly gassed…” during his service in France. There is no mention of this as a contributory cause of Bob’s illness in any of the military records, although that does not mean he did not suffer exposure to gas. Had this been the case, a weakening of his respiratory capacity may have made him more susceptible to the onset of T.B. It could be that the information was simply mis-reported and confused with his brother George who had just been ‘gassed back’ to England, had also been in the RAMC, and was also a male nurse at Leavesden Asylum.

Whatever the confusion Bob Coxhill was a tragic victim of the Great War.

Bob is Remembered with Honour in the Hemel Hempstead (Heath Lane) Cemetery, United Kingdom, where he is interred in Grave AC. 54. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his father Charles, reads “A HERO’S REST”.

He was 36 years old when he died.

Bob was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.