Born: 1898, Idle
Died: 16 March 1917
Buried: Queen’s Cemetery, Bucquoy
Address: 5 Ellar Carr Road, Simpson Green, Idle
Parents: Robert & Christiana
Spouse:
Siblings: Teddie, Albert, Ralph, Laura, Ann, William, Frank, Alice, Lilian
Occupation: Bobbin pegger (1911)
Organisations/clubs:
Military
Rank: Gunner
Medals/awards:
Rolls of Honour: Holy Trinity, Idle
Children:
Regiment: Royal Field Artillery
Robert Hartley
Robert was one of ten children of
Robert and Christiana Hartley who
were living in Westfield Lane, Idle,
in 1901 and had moved to Ellar
Carr Road ten years later.
On 23 March 1917, the Shipley
Times & Express reported:
News reached Idle yesterday that
Gunner Robert Hartley, RFA, the
youngest son of Mr and Mrs Robert
Hartley of Ellar Carr, Simpson
Green, had been killed in action.
Gunner Hartley enlisted two years
ago and only went to France since
Christmas 1916.
Two of his brothers, Pte Frank
Hartley of Bradford Pals and Pte
Willie Hartley, are serving.
The news was
conveyed in a letter
written by Gunner
Harry Buckley to his
wife who resides at
34 Fourlands, Idle,
which she received
yesterday morning.
A week later, the
newspaper included
this piece:
The parents of the
late Gunner Robert
Hartley, RFA, of
Ellar Carr Road, Idle, have received
the following letter from Major T A
Arnold-Forster:
Dear Mrs Hartley, It is my sad duty
to inform you that your son Gunner
R Hartley was yesterday
killed in action in this
battery.
He was assisting the
battery cook at about
8.30 am when he was
struck by parts of a
bursting shell and killed
instantly with the cook.
Please accept the most
sincere sympathies of
myself, my officers,
NCOs and men. I can
assure you we all feel
the loss very much indeed.
Both men had done their work well
since we went into action, often
under very trying and difficult
circumstances and both had been in
this battery since it was formed.
We buried them in the cemetery
here and are putting up a little cross
to mark the position of the grave.
A few of his personal possessions
which you may like to have will be
sent off but they might be some
little time in reaching you.
In April the paper reported that a
local soldier, Ernest Fletcher, who
was later to die in the war had
marked his neighbour’s passing:
L Cpl Ernest Fletcher, a son of Mr
Chas E Fletcher, writes that he has
visited the grave of the late Pte
Robert Hartley, son of Mr and Mrs
Robt Hartley, Ellar Carr Road, and
planted the mound from top to
bottom with snowdrops.