Chum Robert McMullen (Bob)
Founder (Hackney) Branch
1914: 8492 Private R. McMullen
2nd Battalion, The Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment)
Born at Skipton in 1887, Robert McMullen was working as a painter’s labourer when he attested for The Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) at Halifax on 16 August 1905, to serve for a period of nine years with the Colours and three years on the Reserve. He served with the 2nd Battalion initially but was drafted to the 1st Battalion in India in December 1907. Qualified as a mounted infantryman, Private McMullen served at Ranikhet and Ambala, where he contracted ringworm and was confined to hospital from 23 September until 13 October 1910, and was quartered at Lahore when he was transferred to the Section A Army Reserve on 10 January 1914 and returned home.
Mobilised following the declaration of war, McMullen reported to the Regimental Depot at Halifax on 5 August 1914 and was posted to the 2nd Battalion at Portobello Barracks in Dublin the following day. Private McMullen sailed from Alexandra Basin on board the S.S. Gloucestershire during the early hours of 14 August and disembarked at Le Havre the following day. He first saw action near the Mons-Conde Canal at St Ghislain and Hornu on 23 August. On 8 November McMullen was shot in the chest during a counter-attack made by the 2nd D.W.R. to retake positions lost by a French regiment of Zouaves north of the Menin Road near Herenthage Chateau. He was evacuated to No. 13 General Hospital at Boulogne before being sent to England on 14 November. McMullen was admitted to Shorncliffe Military Hospital and remained there until 9 December. Posted onto the strength of the 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion, he was sent to the Regimental Depot on 9 February 1915 following his discharge from hospital, but went absent without leave between 28 April and 12 May 1915 and on being convicted was sentenced to 21 days’ Field Punishment and forfeited fifteen days’ pay.
McMullen was transferred to the 1st Garrison Battalion, The Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) on 1 August 1915 and was issued with the regimental number 41176. He sailed to Malta with the Battalion, disembarking on 16 August, and served on garrison duties until the following year when he was drafted to France as a reinforcement, landing at Marseilles on 7 May 1916. McMullen arrived at No. 23 Infantry Base Depot in Etaples on 10 May and was drafted to the 1/5th Battalion of the West Yorkshires on 2 June. He saw action during the Somme Offensive and was wounded in his left shoulder and hip on 14 July near Authuille. Admitted to 1/2nd West Riding Field Ambulance, McMullen was evacuated to No. 44 Casualty Clearing Station at Puchevillers before being sent to No. 1 Stationary Hospital at Rouen on 18 July. Four days later he was sent to England on board the H.M.H.S. St Andrew. After recovering from his wounds, McMullen was posted to the 5th (Reserve) Battalion at Clipstone Camp on 24 September, but was placed on a draft to France the following month and disembarked on 25 October 1916. Sent to No. 33 Infantry Base Depot at Etaples, he was posted to the 2nd West Yorkshires on 7 November and joined the Battalion in their billets at Le Fay as part of a draft of 129 Other Ranks. McMullen was appointed an unpaid Lance-Corporal on 23 November.
While serving in the line near Combles on 6 March 1917 he was wounded in the right hand and was evacuated, being admitted to No. 1 Australian General Hospital at Rouen three days later. McMullen spent two months in convalescence before he was sent to No. 33 Infantry Base Depot at Etaples. On 4 June he was sent back to the 2nd Battalion, and on his arrival at the West Yorks’ billets at Outtersteene two days later, as part of a draft of 34 Other Ranks, Lance-Corporal McMullen was posted to “D” Company. He received a gunshot wound to his right leg during the fighting around Hannebeke Wood on 16 August and was evacuated to No. 55 General Hospital before being sent to England on 22 August. Admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital (Stourbridge Section), which was located at the Wordsley Infirmary, he was discharged on 20 October following treatment and sent on ten days’ furlough. Posted onto the strength of the 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion at Whitley Bay, Lance-Corporal McMullen forfeited six days’ pay under Royal Warrant for absence between 6 and 12 December 1917.
McMullen was drafted again to France on 17 December and was initially posted to the 1st West Yorks, but on 22 December was sent to join the 12th (Service) Battalion on 22 December, retaining his appointment as an unpaid Lance-Corporal. His time with the 12th West Yorkshires was short as, as part of the reduction in the strength of infantry Brigades from four to three battalions, the Battalion was disbanded on 17 February 1918. Sent to the 10th Entrenching Battalion, McMullen was posted to the 10th (Service) Battalion on 5 April and on 21 June was promoted to Corporal. Having completed his original period of engagement, McMullen re-engaged to serve for the duration of the war under the terms of the Military Service Act of 1916 and received a bounty of £20.
On 24 August 1918, while the 10th West Yorkshires took part in operations to capture Pozieres, Corporal McMullen received catastrophic gunshot wounds to his face that destroyed both of his eyes. He was admitted to 63rd Field Ambulance, being noted as being conscious on his arrival, before being sent to No. 56 Casualty Clearing Station. Evacuated to No. 3 General Hospital, McMullen was sent home to England on 25 September and admitted to 4th London General Hospital at Denmark Hill. He was discharged, as a consequence of his severe wounds, on 18 October 1918 and was later issued with a Silver War Badge.
Following his discharge from the Army Bob McMullen was sent to the St Dunstan’s Hostel in Regent’s Park, where he received training in poultry-keeping and basket making. While at St Dunstan’s he met Alice Emma Earwicker, and they married 1919. The couple initially had a smallholding in Oxfordshire but Bob and Alice later resided at 9 Gilbert Cottages on Wattisfield Road in Clapton, which was part of a complex of homes made available for seriously disabled ex-servicemen and their families by the Hackney Disabled Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Foundation.
Bob McMullen joined the Founder (Hackney) Branch of The Old Contemptibles’ Association shortly before he went on the pilgrimage that had been organised to Mons and Brussels in November 1927. He was interviewed by the press and stated that: “I am looking forward to the visit. I shall see everything again although I have lost my sight. I am delighted to know that my old pals are around me.” He added: “Even if we can’t see, we shall be able to imagine what Mons looks like. It’s worth going for. It’ll bring back the old times to us again.” Together with another St Dunstaner, Chum Willie England, he can be seen in photographs and newsreels of the pilgrimage, the two Chums standing together arm-in-arm.
Chum McMullen was issued with the Clasp and Roses to his 1914 Star on 24 February 1928, but his health soon began to deteriorate. A correspondent from The Yorkshire Evening Post visited Chum McMullen in Hackney and recounted his story in an article published on 10 November 1930:
“I have just come from the home of a Leeds man in Hackney, North-East London, where heroism, devotion, endurance, romance, and pathos crowd together. The hero himself is not there. He lies in hospital, suffering from an infectious disease, and as yet ignorant of his condition. He is Corporal Robert McMullen, late of the Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment, an “Old Contemptible,” and he is suffering from tubercular disease of the larynx. He has lost the sight of both eyes, and one leg has been amputated six inches below the knee. Yet he never complains. In all the 12 years that have elapsed since August, 1918, when he received his seventh and finally disabling wound on the battlefields of France, he had maintained a courageous and cheerful demeanour.
As a boy, Bob McMullen was a scholar at St Anne’s School, Leeds, and he and his brothers (one of whom is also an “Old Contemptible”) played many a prank on the teaching staff there. After a year or two in various jobs, the lad followed a natural bent for soldiering, and joined the West Riding Regiment. He had served his time uneventfully, with a period of garrison duty in India. Then, in the early part of 1914, he returned to live with his mother at Sheepscar Buildings, Leeds.
On August 4, 1914, he was recalled to the colours. The original Expeditionary Force which stemmed the onrush of the German forces at Mons included many men like Robert McMullen. In September, 1914, fighting on the Aisne, McMullen met with his first wound. In November of the same year, at Ypres, he received further injuries. In July, 1916, on the Somme, he received shrapnel wounds in the leg, and in March, 1917, his hand was injured. At Ypres, in August, 1917, he was shot in the shoulders. When he returned to the front after a period in hospital, he was once more on the Somme, and it was there that he received terrible injuries to his face and eyes – injuries which resulted in the total loss of sight.
St Dunstan’s had been doing remarkable service for two years or more, and Corporal McMullen was received as a pupil, to be taught poultry farming, and basket making. He proved himself an apt pupil, and was set up in December, 1919, on a little place in Oxfordshire. In one of the London munition factories groups of young women, after their day’s work, planned to take parties of the St Dunstan’s men out, first to tea, and then to a theatre or concert. Thus it came about that Robert McMullen, blind and disabled though he was, found a life partner. Mr and Mrs McMullen went to Oxfordshire, and for some years they carried on the poultry farm, and made a living out of their stock, which, together with a corporal’s pension, made things comparatively easy for them. Two boys were born to them, and they have grown into sturdy, self-reliant, typical English youngsters. That they were cared for is shown by the fact that the elder of the two carried off the first prize at a village baby show when he was only a few months old. However, their house was damp, and, moreover, there was no church near at hand where the boys could receive instruction in the faith of their father, who is a devout Roman Catholic. All this time the authorities at St Dunstan’s had kept in close touch with their ex-pupil. I have looked through the reports sent to London by the local visitors, and they bear eloquent tribute to his sturdy independence. “Intelligent, self-reliant, and a good trier” is the comment that one finds emphasised in these intimate records. St Dunstan’s authorities arranged for the family to be moved to London, and it was in the living room of their cottage in North London that I gathered much of the story I have related. The cottage is one of a group of memorial homes. It is beautifully clean and bright, and gives every evidence of homely care.
Mrs McMullen told me that she goes to sit with her husband three times every day. For an hour and half at each visit she reads and talks cheerfully with him, telling him about the boys, about the home, and discussing the future with him. As soon as possible Mr McMullen will be taken to Bournemouth, to the United Services Sanatorium there. Meanwhile his wife has no financial anxieties, for the unremitting attention of the St Dunstan’s after-care authorities is focussed upon this tragic home. The boys are receiving the religious and secular schooling the father desires. It was from St Dunstan’s that I was told of the appeals that had been made to the Ministry of Pensions on behalf of the family. Not a word came from Mrs McMullen on the subject. It appears that, when McMullen’s foot began to be painful, and X-ray treatment was advised, the medical advisers of the Ministry of Pensions, after two independent consultations, were unable to agree that the extra disability was due to war service. The fact that the loss of the limb was followed by the throat trouble has made it possible for the whole question of the cause of this further suffering to be re-opened with the Ministry and the St Dunstan’s after-care authorities are once more appealing to the Ministry of Pensions.”
Chum Bob McMullen died at Homerton Union Infirmary in Hackney on 2 February 1931. His widow Alice never remarried and died in 1982, aged 96.
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