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2nd Lt. Robert Arthur Kirby
British Army 11 Coy. Machine Gun Corps
from:St Albans
(d.11th May 1917)
One of two brothers who died in WW1 at Arras. Bob Kirby was originally in the Buffs the Royal East Kent Reg., but during training the officer in charge saw the two volumes of detailed notes Bob had written (family heirlooms) on the Vickers Machine Gun which demonstrated his engineering background and promoted him to 2nd Lieut., with the 11th Machine Gun Corps. Bob was the 2nd son of Edward and Emma Kirby of Liverpool St, later of Glanville Road St Albans. He came from a Heavy Engineering family on the Railways as his grandfather was Engineer for the Midlands Railway building the sheds at Leicester, Peterborough and Saltly, Birmingham instructing the workers how to build railway engines.
Robert Arthur (Bob) was a clerk at Gower St for the LMS and a bell ringer at St Peter's. St Albans. His father Edward was the Chief Engineer at the LMS Sheds at St Albans and founded the Edward Kirby and the St Albans Lodges of the ROAB. His younger brother Ernest was killed on the minesweeper HMS Enterprise in the Adriatic and was buried at Brindisi. During 1981 his body along with other graves were moved to the Bari War Cemetery. Their elder brother Edward was a engineer designer for Rolls Royce at Derby but was headhunted by Smiths Industries at Cricklewood. He had three sons, Edward (Ted), Robert (Bob) and Ernest (Ern). The family came from Medbourne Leics, they were a branch of the Kirkby family of Castle Hedingham on the De Vere estate but anciently from Yorkshire and Furness in Nth Lancs., now Cumbria.
