Robert William Sent

Born: 1879

Died: 18 September 1918

Rank and Regiment: Gunner 147798 of the 185th Siege Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery

Resting Place: Hancourt British Cemetery, France

He was born in Hardingham around 1879 to William, a labourer, and Georgiana. His baptism is recorded at Hardingham on 1st June 1879. By the time of the 1881 Census the family was living at Lyngwhite, Hingham.

His marriage is recorded in the Blofield division of Norfolk in the first quarter of 1906. His wife was (Emma) Lily Drane Cranness, born in Wymondham on  
11th June 1878 and baptised there on 20th March 1898.

Her father Thomas Cranness was described as “Rural Postman”, the occupation which Robert was to follow.

Robert Sent appears on the Electoral Roll for Hardingham at High Common in 1908 to 1911, though the family, including their two children both born in Hardingham, had moved back to Hingham by the time of the 1911 Census. His occupation is given in that Census as “farmer and rural postman”.

At that time, Thomas Cranness, by then a widower, was living with two younger sisters of Lily at Low Common, Hardingham.

Robert Sent enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery Regiment at Attleborough (but his enlistment papers do not survive). He served in France & Flanders and was killed in action on 18th September 1918 aged 39. We have not been able to find details of the action in which he was killed. One might have supposed that the Royal Garrison Artillery would be behind the lines shelling the enemy; but the CWGC apparently record no fewer than 15,850 deaths among men of the Royal Garrison Artillery.

He is buried at Hancourt British Cemetery. The inscription on his tombstone reads:

“UNTIL THE DAY BREAK”

He is commemorated on the War Memorial at Hingham.

It appears that Lily did not remarry after his death; the death of a Lily E D Sent is recorded in Norwich Outer in 1954, when she would have been 77.

Hancourt British Cemetery, France