Roll of Honour
2nd Lieutenant
Robert Main Graham
Robert Main Graham was born on 10th September 1891 in Kinning Park, Govan, Glasgow, Lanarkshire. Robert was the youngest of five children born to Daniel Graham (died in 1910, aged 75), a Law Cashier, and his mother, Isabella Graham (née Main), who had married in 1878 in the Gorbals parish of Glasgow. He attended Albert Road Academy. His chosen career was Chartered Accountancy and he spent a year as a student at the University of Glasgow, enrolled in the class of Mercantile Law from 1911-1912.
Although no longer a student, but a Chartered Accountant working at the offices of Thomson, Jackson, Gourlay and Taylor, Robert joined the University Officer Training Corps in 1915. In August of the same year he took a commission with the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment and served in France with the 10th Battalion.
Lieutenant Graham was killed in action at the Battle of Transloy Ridges during the last offensive of the Fourth Army’s Somme campaign. On the 4th October 1916 he was in a small party detailed to cut through the barbed wire by hand and advance on the German trenches. At first successful in gaining a foothold the plan began to go wrong.
An officer wrote to his mother, Isabella, ‘We were hung up in the Boche wire, and machine guns were turned on us and bombs were thrown at us as we were getting through. Your son was a splendid officer, steady, cool and brave. He was given charge of our left flank, and he brought it forward splendidly. I regret exceedingly the loss of so valuable an officer, which not only we, but the men feel so keenly. He is missed and mourned by us all.’
Robert was 25. Lieutenant Robert Main Graham’s name is honoured on the Thiepval Memorial.
Comments and Citations
University of Glasgow Faculty and Registry records.
De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour 1914-1919, Vol. 3, p119.
London Gazette, 23rd August 1915.
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