HANNA, Robert Alexander

Private, D Company, 1st Battalion, Australian Infantry
Service No: 1326
Died: 02/05/1915

Remembered on Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli
Remembered on family memorial in Bangor Cemetery
 
Robert Alexander Hanna was born on the 11th November 1882 in Main Street Bangor.
He was the son of Joseph Hanna and his wife Jane Hanna nee Bowman, and was the youngest of their six children.

Lone Pine Memorial. Image © CWGC

His father Joseph was a native of Banbridge and was a clerk and book-keeper with the firm of Messrs Dixon, Ferguson and Co., linen manufacturers, Belfast. He married Jane Bowman in Trinity Presbyterian Church, Bangor, in July 1871 and the family moved to live in Main Street.

Joseph changed careers to become a grocer and General Merchant after the birth of their first child, Isabella, in 1872. About 1885 he moved to Chicago where he worked for the packing firm of Messrs. Fowler & Co. as a town traveller.

Robert was working as a draper by the time of the 1901 census and sometime after emigrated to Australia.

His family had moved to Queens Parade by the time of the 1911 census but later that year moved to Beaumont Terrace, Bangor, and it was there his father Joseph died on 13th November 1911.

Robert was working as a grazier in Australia and enlisted on 12th November 1914 at Liverpool, New South Wales.

He went to Gallipoli with the ANZAC forces but was reported as missing in action on 2nd May 1915.

A Court of Enquiry was held on 11 January 1916 at Tel-el-Kebir on those men marked as missing during the landing at Gallipoli on the 25th April and subsequent actions.

The court found that "those missing during the action at Lone Pine... thinks that there is little possibility of any of those men being alive..." consequently Robert's service record records that he was "previously reported missing now reported killed in action".

Robert's brother, James, served also with the RAMC.