Robert Bagster Wilson Vinter, MC (1896 – 1916) – British soldier and poet

With grateful thanks to Rachel Hassall, Archivist at Sherborne School, Dorset, UK

Robert was born in Torpoint, St. Germans, Cornwall, UK on 5th April 1896.  His parents were Sydney Garrett Vinter, a medical practitioner, and his wife, Frances Vinter, nee Toms.  Robert had a sister – Frances Jean, born 1904.

Educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, Robert was awarded a scholarship to study at Keble College, Oxford.  However, the First World War intervened and instead he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the 6th Worcestershire Regiment.  

Posted to the Western Front, Robert was awarded the Military Cross on 28th July 1916 for conspicuous gallantry during an attack on an enemy crater.   He was killed in action near Les Boeufs (Vimy Ridge) in France on 31st October 1916, during the Battle of the Somme.  Robert is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial in France and on the War Memorial in Torpoint, Cornwall.  

An untitled poem written by Robert:

The Saviour fast nailed to the Cross,

Suffered theloss of comforting divine

Because the world’s sin burdened him too much

With black despair. Some of that sin was mine.

Hard sought, scarce won, He set my spirit right

And bade me follow up th’illumined way!

Nor leaves me now amid the rocks and thorns,

Uncomforted, but is my staff and stay.

October, 1916 R.B.W.V.

Published in “The Shirburnian” magazine of Sherborne School in April 1917. 

Sources:

“The Shirburnian” magazine, April 1917

Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

“Supplement to The London Gazette, 27 July 1916

http://somme-roll-of-honour.com/Units/british/2nd_worcestershire.htm