Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

Embarkation Information

Military Awards

Death

Biographical Notes

Robert Frederick Ford Taplin, known as Bertie or Bert, was born on 26 April 1890 at Timaru, the third son of John Samuel and Anna Rosetta (née Ford) Taplin. John and Anna married on 21 December 1885 at Timaru where four sons and four daughters were born. Robert F. F. Taplin was baptised on 10 May 1898 at St Mary’s, Timaru, along with his brother Thomas and sisters Elizabeth and Anna. Bertie started at Timaru Main School a few months after his fifth birthday and transferred to Waimataitai School in 1897. John Samuel Taplin who was the much-respected foreman butcher at Smithfield Works, and his wife were made several presentations by employees in May 1902 on his retirement from the position. A few months later Ford and his siblings went from Waimataitai School to Picton. Anna Rosetta Taplin, the second daughter of John and Anna, died at Picton in 1903, just 6½ years old. J. S. continued as a butcher at Picton until he was successful in a land ballot at Totara just out of Oamaru. So, he took up farming in 1908.

Robert Taplin enlisted on 7 April 1916 at Trentham. Having previously been a farm labourer he was now a packer at the Pukeuri Freezing Works near Oamaru, single and of Church of England affiliation. He named his mother as next-of-kin – Mrs J. S. Taplin, Hilderthorpe, North Otago. Private R. F. F. Taplin embarked with the Otago Infantry Battalion of the 15th Reinforcements, leaving on 26 July 1916. He suffered wounds to his left hand, right arm and chest in Action in the Field and died of these wounds in No. 2 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in Belgium on the morning of 14 October 1917. Twenty-seven years-old, Private Taplin was buried in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Poperinge, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. He was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

“It was with extreme regret that the friends of Mr and Mrs J. Taplin heard of the receipt, on Tuesday, of cabled advice that their third eldest son, Private R. F. F. (Bert) Taplin had died of wounds on October 14th at the Canadian clearing hospital in France. Private Taplin was born at Timaru and educated at the Waimataiti and Picton schools. On leaving school he was employed for a year in Watson, and Nicholl’s printing office in Picton. His parents then removed to Totara, where he engaged in farming, and later to Pukeuri, where he was employed in the wool department of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company. Private Bert Taplin enlisted from Pukeuri, and left New Zealand with the 15th Reinforcements. and has two brothers, George and Tom, at the front, the latter having sailed with the 6th Reinforcements. Private Taplin was of a quiet, retiring disposition, and was very highly esteemed by all who know him. His many friends will deeply sympathise with Mr and Mrs Taplin in the loss of one of the best of sons.” [Oamaru Mail. 24 October 1917]

Bert Taplin was remembered by his loving parents, brothers and sisters in an In Memoriam notice in 1919 – “We cannot tend the lonely graves That lie across the sea; Nor see again the boys we loved Who’ve died for liberty.” Robert F. F. Taplin’s name is inscribed on the Memorial in St Luke’s Anglican Church, Oamaru, as are those of his brothers. Two brothers of Robert Frederick Ford Taplin served in World War One – George William Taplin and Thomas Henry Ford Taplin (Tom, Ford); as did two cousins – John Langdon Gabb (son of Jane Taplin and Alfred Frederick Gabb), and William Paul Richards who died of wounds on 7 October 1917 in France (son of Sarah Taplin and her second husband George Richards). Two nephews served in World War Two - Ronald Warwick Taplin (son of John Robert Taplin and Florence May Warwick) and John Robert McGregor (son of Elizabeth Rosetta Violet Taplin and James Reid McGregor); as did a cousin - John Leonard George Bradding (son of Elizabeth Fanny Taplin and Henry Leonard Bradding). John Samuel Taplin, his brother Thomas Henry Taplin, their parents (George and Elizabeth) and most, maybe all, of their siblings had settled at Timaru in the late 1870s. John Samuel Taplin died in 1938 at Oamaru and was buried there with his wife Anna Rosetta Taplin who died in 1928.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [05 January 2024]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [05 January 2024]; School Admission records (South Canterbury Branch NZSG) [05 January 2024]; Anglican Baptism record (South Canterbury Branch NZSG records) [07 January 2024]; Oamaru Mail, 24 & 25 October 1917, 14 October 1919, 14 October 1920, Press, 26 October 1917, Otago Daily Times, 28 June 1938 (Papers Past) [05 & 07 January 2024]

External Links

• Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph record
• Military personnel file

Related Documents

No documents available. 

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.