Private Robert William Clitherow

Robert William Clitherow was born in Edmonton, Middlesex in the last quarter of 1892 to Charles and Alice Clitherow.
The 1911 Census reveals that he was working as an under gardener, and living at Holly Cottage, Bury Lane, Horsell, Woking. The family consisted of his parents, Charles age 65 and with his mother Alice age 57 with their children.
Alice aged 38 years
Sophia aged 36 years
Robert William aged 18 years. There was also a grandchild called Ronald Alexander living with them.
In 1915 at the age of 22 years, he married Laura Li Lurre a spinster aged 20 years at The Parish Church, St Saviours on August 8th. The couple were living at 8 Aston Road, Raynes Park.
Robert William enlisted at Wimbledon as a private in the Machine Gun Corps and was killed in action on the 29th June 1918.

Robert William Clitherow is buried at Barenthal Military Cemetery

At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the tactical potential of machine guns was not appreciated by the British Armed Forces. The prevalent attitude of senior ranks at the outbreak of the Great War can be summed up by the opinion of an officer (albeit expressed a decade earlier) that a single battery of machine guns per army corps was a sufficient level of issue
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Despite the evidence of fighting in Manchuria (1905 onwards) the army therefore went to war with each infantry battalion and cavalry regiment containing a machine gun section of just two guns.

These organic (embedded) units were supplemented in November 1914 by the formation of the Motor Machine Gun Service (MMGS) administered by the Royal Artillery, consisting of motor-cycle mounted machine gun batteries.

A machine gun school was also opened in France.

After a year of warfare on the Western Front it was self-evident that to be fully effective–in the opinion of former sceptics-that machine guns must be used in larger units and some commanders advocated crewing them with specially trained men who not only thoroughly conversant with their weapons but who understood how they should be best deployed for maximum effect. To achieve this, the Machine Gun Corps was formed in October 1915 with Infantry, Cavalry, and Motor branches, followed in 1916 by the Heavy Branch. A depot and training centre was established at Belton Park in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and a base depôt at Camiers in France.

Men of the Machine Gun Corps Motor Branch, with their sidecar motorcycle, June 1918.
• The Infantry Branch was by far the largest and was formed by the transfer of battalion machine gun sections to the MGC. These sections were grouped into Brigade Machine Gun Companies, three per division. New companies were raised at Grantham. In 1917, a fourth company was added to each division. In February and March 1918, the four companies in each division were formed into a Machine Gun Battalion.