Profile

ROBERTSON, James Ashbrooke
(Service number 26176)

Aliases
First Rank	Rifleman	Last Rank

Birth

Date	12 April 1886	Place of Birth	Timaru

Enlistment Information

Date		Age
Address at Enlistment	33 North Terrace, Kelburn
Occupation	Carpenter
Previous Military Experience	43 Mackenzie Mounted Rifles
Marital Status
Next of Kin	Mrs Sarah ROBERTSON (mother), 33 North Terrace, Kelburn, Wellington
Religion	Presbyterian
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	New Zealand Rifle Brigade
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	11th Reinforcements, 2nd Battalion
Date	25 September 1916
Transport	Devon
Embarked From		Destination

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date		Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date	9 April 1974	Age	87 years
Place of Death
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Karori Crematorium, Wellington
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

James Ashbrooke Robertson was the oldest son of James McGregor and Sarah Ann (née Ashbrooke) Robertson. James and his brother John and sister Margaret were educated at Silverstream and Fairlie schools. His father served on the Silverstream School committee. Tragedy struck the family when Mr James McGregor Robertson suffered a serious accident in a heavy fall while mustering in the back country of Ashwick station late in April 1900. He was sent to Timaru hospital in a serious conditionwith a crushed arm. It appears that he never fully recovered.. Late in 1904 he faced banruptcy. James had been a shepherd in the Fairlie area for 12 or 14 years. After the family came to Timaru in early 1904, Mrs Robertson had been conducting a boarding house, and James had been ill, when they got into debt. James died in September 1905 at the Timaru Hospital and was buried in the Timaru Cemetery. widow Sarah married widower James Holmes, many years older than Sarah, on 23 January 1907 at St Mary's Church, Timaru. James had come up from Southland the year before. Sarah, however, was living in Wellington when both her sons enlisted. James married Helen Taylor in 1923. His youngest brother, George Reid Robertson, was killed in action in August 1915 at Gallipoli.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotapha Database [17 January 2020]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal affairs) [17 January 2020]; School Admission record (South Canterbury Branch NZSG) [17 January 2020]; Timaru Herald, 25 April 1894, 13 December 1904, 27 September 1905, South Canterbury Times, 1 May 1900 (Papers Past) [18 January 2020]; Karori Crematorium record (Wellington City Council) [17 January 2020]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

Tell us more

Do you have information that could be added to this story? Or related images that you are happy to share? Submit them here!