The Sinking of the R.M.S. Leinster
 

People on board

William Robert Askew

ASKEW, Robert William

Robert William Askew was born on the 25th of December 1893 in Wimbledon, London to William Askew and Theodora Hitchen. He was the second of their eight children, two of whom died young. William Askew was a ‘Leather Dresser’ and Robert followed him in that occupation, according to the 1911 census. In that census only Robert, aged seventeen, and the two youngest boys were with Theodora in South Road, Wimbledon. William was found in the Croydon Union Workhouse in that census. Described as an ‘Inmate’ he was probably in the Infirmary, though no details of illness appear on the census form. He was listed as ‘Widower’, clearly incorrectly.

Robert moved to Prescot in Lancashire where he worked in the British Insulated and Helsby Cables Company. He enlisted in 1914 in Prescot in the South Lancashire Regiment, with the Service Number 1933, and was posted to the Front in February 1915. His original military records are not available but the transcript says that he was with the 1st/4th Regiment who fought in France. However it was the 3rd/4th which had moved to Dublin in April 1918.

Robert Askew was an Acting Sergeant when he travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918. He did not survive the sinking nor was his body recovered. His name is recorded on the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton and on the Merseyside and Prescot Rolls of Honour.

 

 

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