Walton, Lance Corporal Robert D.

Service highlights

  • Service number: 193405
  • Rank: Lance Corporal
  • Born: Chantilly, 31 July 1891
  • Early service: served in the French Navy before immigrating to Canada
  • Work: Machinist at Maxwell’s on James Street South
  • Music and community: played with the Maxwell Band and the Baptist Church orchestra, also known locally for his clarinet playing
  • Moved: Brampton in 1913, worked at Copeland-Chatterson Company
  • Enlisted: Toronto, 14 August 1915, in the 92nd Canadian Infantry Battalion, raised mainly by 48th Highlanders of Canada to reinforce the 15th Canadian Infantry Battalion
  • Sailed: from Halifax on SS Empress of Britain, 20 May 1916
  • Training in England: reserve and training at Shorncliffe
  • Posted to France: 21 September 1916, to No. 2 Company, 15th Battalion
  • Served through: the Battle of the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Arleux, and the capture of Fresnoy
  • Machine gun role: transferred to battalion machine gun section on 31 December 1916, later kept with the 15th when brigade machine gun companies formed
  • Appointed lance corporal: 28 May 1917
  • Leave: visited his sister in Senlis
  • Died: 15 August 1917 at Hill 70, north of Lens
  • Commemorated: on the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, & on the cenotaph in St. Marys

A Life and Service Remembered

Robert Walton’s story carries a few details that make him easy to picture as a real person, not only a name. He was born in Chantilly, served first with the French Navy, and then started again in Canada, settling in St. Marys and working as a machinist at Maxwell’s foundry on James Street South.

Away from work, he made music. He played with the Maxwell Band and with the Baptist Church orchestra, even though he was Anglican. Later, when he moved to Brampton in 1913, he played clarinet for the Baptist Church there as well, and the book notes he was in demand for public performances. It also describes him as an all round athlete, someone fully woven into the everyday life of the places he lived.

He enlisted in Toronto in August 1915 and sailed from Halifax on SS Empress of Britain on 20 May 1916, he reached the 15th Battalion in France in September 1916. He came through the Somme fighting unhurt and was recognized as a good soldier. When the battalion machine gun sections were reorganized into brigade machine gun companies, he could have transferred into the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, but he chose to stay with his comrades in the 15th. That choice says something about the kind of loyalty that forms inside a battalion.

In May 1917 he was appointed lance corporal, and soon after he used his leave to visit his sister Jessie in Senlis. Not long after returning, he was killed on 15 August 1917 during the attack at Hill 70.

That morning the assault went in at dawn under a planned smokescreen, with Royal Engineers firing drums of burning oil into enemy positions. The fighting around the 15th Battalion’s objective was confused and deadly, with machine guns and snipers in Bois Hugo. Ammunition ran short, and Robert tried to carry a load of bombs, meaning grenades, from a reserve trench up to the front line. A German sniper spotted him and shot him through the head. He died almost at once.

He was buried near the front line trenches in a hurried grave, but post war searches could not recover his body. His name is therefore recorded on the Vimy Memorial, and in St. Marys, where his name remains part of the community’s remembrance.

Robert was survived by his parents, William Walter and May Denman Walton, and by a brother and two sisters, Walter Walton and Jessie Bliss, both living in France, and Gertrude de Lage in Italy.

Major battles and operations

  • Western Front service with the 15th Battalion, including the Somme sector at the Brickfields
  • Machine gun section service within the battalion, late 1916
  • Vimy Ridge and Arleux, April 1917
  • Capture of Fresnoy, May 1917
  • Battle of Hill 70, 15 August 1917
    • Assault north of Lens
    • Heavy fire and confusion around Bois Hugo
    • Killed while carrying grenades forward under fire

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