By David Stevens
John Chew Robinson, DCM MM, achieved a rare distinction in The Great War – he survived. The average life of an infantry soldier serving on the Western Front was measured in weeks. John Robinson, although he was wounded, served almost continuously from September 1915 until the cessation of hostilities.
John Chew (Chew being his mother’s maiden name) was a front-line soldier, a man who faced death daily and whose personal courage was formerly recognised on two separate occasions for which he won two of his country’s highest awards for gallantry. He was also mentioned in dispatches and would have won the supreme honour – the Victoria Cross – had the officer who had proposed to recommend it not been killed.
John Robinson was born on June 23rd, 1892 at 4, Factory Street, Darlaston, Staffordshire the third of eight children born to Arthur and Harriet Robinson. John’s father, a screw forger by profession, moved his family to Hartlepool County Durham in 1896 and it was in the north-east that young John grew up and went to school.
John’s father was a harsh man who frequently beat him until, eventually, John ran away from home. He joined some fairground people in the Trimdon area and moved with them to Spennymoor where he was befriended by a Mr. Bland, the local cobbler, who took the runaway boy into his home. His father searched for him and finally tracked him down, demanding that his son return home. Mindful of the treatment young John had experienced, Mr. Bland refused to hand him over and threatened to go to the police with the details of Arthur Robinson’s cruelty to his son.
On leaving school John found work as a miner at East Hetton Colliery. Coal, along with steel and ship building were the region’s principal sources of employment. During his working life John would work at two other collieries in the Durham coalfields – Wheatley Hill and Thornley. He was still a miner when, on April 11th, 1914 he married a twenty-one year old local girl, Martha Marr at Quarrington Hill, County Durham. The young couple set up home and prepared for their life together blissfully ignorant of the storm clouds gathering over Europe.
A month after war broke out the 14th (Service) battalion of the Durham Light Infantry was formed at Newcastle. Within weeks John Robinson travelled to the city to join them. The battalion began training and on the 11th of September, 1915 it landed at Boulogne as part of 18th Brigade, 6th Division.
The battalion saw action in the Ypres sector before being ordered to the Somme where they arrived on August 11, 1916. They took part in the attack on The Quadrilateral on September 18th and stormed their objectives. They moved around the sector taking up positions at Lesboeufs, Méaulte, Ville-sur-Ancre and Trônes Wood. They attacked the trench system known as Rainbow and Shine trenches, taking them under heavy bombardment, C Company taking Rainbow and B Company (including John Robinson) successfully assaulting Shine.
It was on the Somme that John won his Military Medal. He was by then a Sergeant and the award was listed in the London Gazette dated October 27th, 1916.
Later in the war he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. By that time he was an acting Company Sergeant-Major. The citation reads: For conspicuous gallantry in action. He led his company under heavy fire, displaying great courage and determination. Later he led a patrol and obtained most valuable information. He set a splendid example throughout.
On February 1st, 1918 the 14th (Service) battalion, Durham Light Infantry was disbanded in France. John Robinson transferred to the Northumberland Fusiliers becoming a Regimental Sergeant-Major. He was still serving with them in April 1920.
On demobilisation he returned home to resume his career as a miner. During his war service he had received severe leg wounds caused by shrapnel, a piece of which he kept as a souvenir. He was still receiving treatment for his wound in the early months of the Second World War. Two of John’s younger brothers also served in The Great War, Joseph (with the Durham Light Infantry) and Arthur, a stoker in the Royal Navy. Arthur died aged twenty-one on November 7th, 1918 – just four days before the armistice.
During the Second World War John served for a time with the Home Guard based at Coxhoe Hall which became a POW camp for Italian prisoners. Later, he became a Prison Officer spending part of his service at Durham Prison.
During his lifetime John was able to witness at first hand history in the making. He did so at Ypres and on the Somme. He was to do so again at the end of the Second World War when the Prison Service sent him to London. On the night of December 18th, 1945 John sat in the condemned cell at Wandsworth Prison with John Amery who was facing the death penalty for treason. He had pleaded guilty to eight counts of high treason. The following morning, December 19th, Amery was hanged.
On January 3rd 1946, John was once again involved with a hanging. He was one of the escort leading William Joyce to the gallows. Joyce, better known as Lord Haw Haw, was a former member of the British Union of Fascists who defected to Germany at the outbreak of the Second World War. He spent those years broadcasting Nazi propaganda in English to radio listeners in Britain. I well remember hearing his sneering drawl opening each broadcast with the words – "Germany calling…Germany calling". During his time at Wandsworth Prison John Robinson met Albert Pierrpoint, who was for many years Britain’s official executioner and sent both Amery and Joyce to their deaths.
Soon after these events John Robinson left the Prison Service and returned to the north-east and to mining. He was once again back in the industry where he had started his working life over forty years earlier. He remained a miner until his retirement.
John devoted his final years to his two great passions – his family and gardening. He took great pride in his allotment, built his own greenhouse and grew prize vegetables, specialising in cultivating leeks which he grew for show. John died from Coronary thrombosis on October 14th, 1970 at home, 2 School Avenue in the village of Kelloe in his beloved County Durham.
John Robinson was typical of a breed of men now so rare as to be virtually extinct. Men from humble backgrounds who took responsibility for their lives and for the lives of those who depended on them. Men who worked tirelessly at physically demanding and often dangerous occupations and who came forward in their thousands when danger threatened their homeland. Men who went unquestioningly over the top to almost certain death time after time.
As Shakespeare said: "He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again."
