Profile

SMITH, Samuel Robert William
(Service number 6/1982)

Aliases
First Rank	Rifleman	Last Rank

Birth

Date	13/01/1895	Place of Birth	Timaru

Enlistment Information

Date	5 January 1917	Age	21 years 11 months
Address at Enlistment	C/o H. M. Reformatory, Invercargill
Occupation	Labourer (NZ Government)
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	Mrs H. SMITH (mother), Grey Street, Timaru
Religion	Church of England
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	G Company
Date	26 April 1917
Transport	Pakeha
Embarked From		Destination	Plymouth, Devon, England

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	30 July 1981	Age	86 years
Place of Death	Cherry Farm Hospital, Waikouaiti
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Andersons Bay Crematorium, Dunedin; ashes interred Andersons Bay Cemetery
Memorial Reference	Block SF 4A, Plot 11
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Samuel Robert William Smith was the first-born of Thomas Smith and his second wife, Ellen née Gregg. Thomas Smith had fifteen children by his first wife, also named Ellen, and six by his second wife. Thomas died in 1914 at Timaru. Born on 13 January 1895 at Timaru, he was educated at Timaru Main School. Samuel was working at the Reformatory at Invercargill when he enlisted. Rifleman S. R. W. Smith embarked for England with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade on 26 April 1917. He returned to New Zealand in March 1918 by Draft 148. Samuel married Marjorie Anice Hullah in 1934. Samuel William Robert Gregg Smith died on 30 July 1981 at Cherry Farm Hospital, Waikouaiti, near Dunedin, aged 86 years. He was cremated at Andersons Bay, Dunedin, and his ashes were interred there. His burial plaque records his World War II service with the Air Force. Samuel’s half-brother died in the Boer War and was buried in the Pretoria Cemetery.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [19 January 2021]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [19 January 2021]; School Admission record [22 January 2021]; Andersons Bay crematorium record, burial record & headstone image (Dunedin City Council) [19 January 2021]; Sun, 13 March 1918 (Papers Past) [16 January 2021]

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.

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