Poppy In memoriam Poppy

Second Lieutenant Robert Victor Lyons

 

 

 

 

Robert Victor Lyons was born on 14 November 1896 at 2 Rosetta Gardens, Belfast, the sixth child of commission agent Thomas Henry Lyons and his wife Ruth (nee Sherrard). His father died on 26 February 1906.

Lyons was educated at the Municipal Technical Institute, Belfast, and then became a linen apprentice to Fiddes, Todd, Corry & Co of Adelaide Street.

He enlisted in the North Irish Horse at Antrim on 24 May 1915 (No.1581) and embarked for France with E Squadron on 11 January 1916.

From 16 to 26 September he was allowed special leave to Ireland, presumably following the death of his brother Captain William Thomas Lyons MC of the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) during an assault on Longueval on 18 July. (Another brother, Captain James Sherran Lyons MC, also of the King’s Own (RLR), was badly wounded in May the following year.)

Lyons applied for a commission at the end of 1916 and on 13 March was posted to No.19 Officer Cadet Battalion at Pirbright. On 27 June 1917 he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and posted to the 17th (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles. He served in France with the 14th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, which in February 1918 was disbanded. Lyons was then posted to the 15th Battalion and attached to the 23rd Entrenching Battalion.

Lyons was killed in action on 24 March 1918 as his battalion fought a determined withdrawal from the west of Ham during the German spring offensive. He was aged 21.

As he has no known grave he is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial, Somme, Panel 74.

 

Lyons (seated, second from left) newly arrived in France with men of E Squadron (Belfast Weekly Telegraph, 26 February 1916).

 

 

Memorial images Copyright © Phillip Tardif with all rights reserved as set out in this Use of Material policy. Second image of 2nd Lieutenant Lyons sourced from the South Dublin Library Service's Our Heroes site http://ourheroes.southdublinlibraries.ie/. First image sourced from The Belfast Metropolitan College.