Lacey, Robert Richard
Private
No. 21048946, 28th Training Battalion, General Service Corps
Died as the result of an accident on Sunday 19 October 1947 (aged 18)
Buried:
Holywood Cemetery, Co. Down (Protestant Ground Grave 1265)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
BIOGRAPHY
Robert Richard Lacey’s birth was registered in the first quarter of 1929 in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire and he was a son of Alexander Richard Lacey who was born in 1888 in London and Elizabeth Rose Lacey (nee Abraham) who was born in 1885 in London. Both of Elizabeth Rose Abraham’s parents were from County Limerick and her father worked as a nurseryman at Dublin Harbour before the Abraham family moved to London.
Alexander Richard Lacey worked as a clerk in the London Stock Exchange before the Lacey family moved to Orchard Mead, Haymead’s Lane, Bishop’s Stortford.
Private Robert Richard Lacey (No. 21048946) served with the 28th Training Battalion, General Service Corps and he was 18 and unmarried when he died on 19 October 1947. He was run over by a train near Holywood, and decapitated. He had only been in the Army since 16 October – some three days before he was killed. Private Lacey was buried in Holywood Cemetery on 22 October and his CWGC headstone bears the inscription:
SO HE PASSED OVER
AND ALL THE TRUMPETS
SOUNDED FOR HIM
ON THE OTHER SIDE
Robert Richard Lacey’s father, Alexander Richard Lacey, died on 19 May 1962 (aged 74). Alexander Richard Lacey’s effects amounted to some £798 and probate was granted to his sisters, Ada Caroline Lacey, and Winifred Letitia Lacey. Robert Richard Lacey’s mother died in 1972 (aged 87).