Robert Osborne
Private 10340 - 1st Bn. King's Shropshire Light Infantry
Killed in action on Sunday 18th July 1915
Buried in La Brique Military Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium
Robert Osborne, was born in Gnosall 1896 to John Osborne, a 29-year-old farm labourer,
(born at Wood End, Wolverhampton) & Mary nee Price from Blymhill aged 30.
The 1901 census shows the family at Old Farm, Back Lane, Knightley: Robert is the fourth
of six children. His mother Mary died in 1909.
In 1911 Robert and three younger siblings were living with an older married sister Ada and
her husband Frederick Wynn, a cowman on a farm, at 3 Parsons Barn, Newport. Robert,
aged 14, was working as a labourer.
In 1914 he was living at Walcot, Shropshire when he enlisted on 10
th
September into 1
st
Battalion of the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry, No. 10340. His medal card shows that he
landed at St Nazaire with his battalion on 1
st
September 1914 and he thus qualified for a
“Mons Star” (1914) as well as the Victory and British medals.
He was killed in action on 18 July 1915 and is buried La Brique Military Cemetery, Ypres,
Belgium, I. O. 29
His father John survived until 1942.
La Brique Military Cemetery
Historical Information
La Brique is a small hamlet named from an old brick works that used to stand nearby
before to the First World War.
LA BRIQUE CEMETERY No.2 was begun in February 1915 and used until March 1918.
The original cemetery consisted of 383 burials laid out in 25 irregular rows in Plot I. After
the Armistice, graves were brought in from the battlefields to create Plot II and extend the
original plot.
There are now 840 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or
commemorated in this cemetery. 400 of the burials are unidentified, but special memorials
commemorate four casualties known or believed to be buried among them.
Across the road is LA BRIQUE CEMETERY No.1, which was begun in May 1915 and
used until the following December. It contains 91 First World War burials, four of them
unidentified.