War Memorial
Charles Robinson was a Private in the 7th Dragoon Guards (Princess Royal's), serving under the regimental number 2754, which also appears in records as D/2754, Dragoon Guards. He signed up at Canterbury and died of wounds on 12 August 1918, at about 32 years of age.
His resting place is Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, which was created after the Armistice, its graves gathered in from other burial grounds and battlefields across the region.
The picture of his early life is slightly muddled. The 'Soldiers died in the Great War' CD gives his birthplace as Tonbridge, yet the 1901 census places it at Rye in Sussex — where a Charles Robinson birth was registered between July and September 1886. That census shows him as a 14-year-old apprentice cabinet maker, one of five sons and a daughter, the youngest then aged five. His parents were George Robinson, who died in 1907, and Harriet Robinson.
By 1918 the Absent Voters Register listed his army details, with a home at 12 Powdermills, Leigh. He is commemorated on both the Leigh and Hildenborough war memorials.