Major William James ROWAN-ROBINSON
2nd Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry

Date of birth: 3rd September 1871
Date of death: 12th May 1915

Killed in action aged 43
Buried at Sanctuary Wood Cemetery Plot II Row B Grave 28/29
He was born at Manorhamilton, County Leitrim in Ireland on the 3rd of September 1871 the son of Surgeon General William Christie Rowan-Robinson, Royal Army Medical Corps, and Sarah Isabella of Canterbury.

He was educated at the King's School Canterbury from September 1881 to July 1886.

He joined the army through the Antrim Militia and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry on the 26th of April 1893. He was posted to Hong Kong on the 23rd of June 1893 and served there until the 21st of December 1894 during which time he was awarded a gold medal for his work during a plague. He was posted to India on the 22nd of December 1894, serving there until the 11th of March 1897 when he returned to England. He returned to India on the 4th of December 1897. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 13th of May 1898, to Captain on the 11th of June 1901 and to Major on the 11th of February 1914. He served as Adjutant of his battalion for four years and as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General, Western District.

He was married in Shropshire in 1908 to Alyne Vera (nee Hulton-Harrop) of 141, Warwick Street, Westminster. (Following his death she was remarried to Alexander Ioannis Mavrogordato in January 1919).

Following the outbreak of war he embarked at Southampton as Commanding Officer of C Company, 1st Battalion Shropshire Light Infantry on the 8th of September 1914 and landed in France at St Nazaire on the 10th of September. He saw action on the Aisne and at Armentieres, where he took temporary command of the battalion from the 13th of November to the 1st of December 1914 when the commanding officer was wounded. He was invalided back to England on December 31st.

He returned to the front where he was attached to the 2nd Battalion, arriving there on the evening of the 10th of May 1915 with Major Clement Arthur Wilkinson.

The battalion were in the Ypres Salient holding the trenches from Bellewaarde Farm to the railway line. On the 11th and 12th the Germans bombarded Railway Wood very heavily and on the 12th the Battalion Headquarters had to be evacuated. When the shelling slackened Majors Rowan-Robinson and Wilkinson returned to their dugout to pickup their equipment. While they were in there a shell came in through the roof of the dugout and exploded inside, killing them both, along with four men from the KSLI and four men from other units.
 

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