Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 12th Battalion of
the East Yorkshire Regiment in May 1915, Robert was killed on 15th August 1916
while on night patrol, particularly poignant because of his poem on this subject entitled ‘No Man's
Land’, written shortly before his death.
A letter from Captain C.E. Lloyd Jones, Adjutant of 3rd
Battalion, The East Yorkshire Regiment, written on 12th August 1919
and published in “The Hull Daily Mail” on 20th August 1919, explained that “2nd
Lieutenant Robert ‘Bobby’ Beckh” was
killed “in the German wire”, near the Boar’s Head at Richebourg-l’Avoué, south
of Bethune in France. According to
Captain Lloyd Jones, Robert was initially buried by the Germans with two other
soldiers, one an officer, in a German military cemetery. One of the soldiers with Robert was called
Private Sugarman and he was from Hull. 
Robert’s WW1 poetry collection “Swallows in Storm and
Sunlight” was published in 1917 by Chapman and Hall, London.
I should like to thank Robert’s family members Tim and
Rebecca Beckh and their daughters Annabelle and Sophia, who have researched
Robert’s life, poetry, war service and death. They have visited Robert’s gravestone in
France and keep his memory alive through poetry readings. They have kindly supplied
additional information and photographs of Robert and his family and given me
permission to share them.
The family photograph shows Robert with his parents and elder brother Leonard V. (b. 1890) and sisters Doris Mary (b. 1896) and Ivy (b. 1901).
The family photograph shows Robert with his parents and elder brother Leonard V. (b. 1890) and sisters Doris Mary (b. 1896) and Ivy (b. 1901).
The British attack on the German lines at The Boar’s Head
began on 30th June 1916 and was planned to create a diversion away from the
Battle of the Somme.
