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.

JORDAN, Robert

Robert is commemorated on the Memorial
in Trinity Presbyterian Church, Bangor

Private, 'D' Coy., 4th Batt., Australian Infantry, A.I.F.
Served as Robert Rogers Gordon
Service No: 1361
Died: Between 06/08/1915 and 09/08/1915
Age: 35

Remembered on Lone Pine Memorial
Remembered on family memorial in Bangor Cemetery

Robert was born on 16 August 1880 at 77 Lepper Street, Belfast, to John Jordan, a sailor, and Jane Jordan nee Barron. (Note: His birth record gives his mothers surname as Barnes but Barron on others. This is confirmed on other records.)

After school Robert took to the sea like his father.

In 1907 he married Mary Ann Tanner in Helen's Bay Presbyterian Church – both are recorded as living in Groomsport at the time.

Robert and Mary moved to Beatrice Road in Bangor and had four children: William (1907); Agnes Jane (1908); Robert (1910); and Gladys Eveline (1913). However, they were to lose Gladys in 1914 at only 9 months old.

Robert had been working in Australia for about a year on the outbreak of war and enlisted on the 3 December 1914. He signed his attestation papers on 5 February 1915 in Liverpool, New South Wales, and posted to the 4th Battalion on 30 March 1915. On his attestation papers he recorded that he had previously served in the Inniskilling Fusiliers for a period of six months before being bought out.

On the 1 May 1915 he was received gun shot wounds to his right shoulder and chest and was sent to Alexandria. He was discharged from hospital there on 21 May and returned to his battalion in Gallipoli on 1 June 1915.

He was reported as killed in action on the Gallipoli Peninsula sometime between the 6 and 8 August 1915.

In a letter to his wife, the company officer said – "I write to give you the sympathy of his comrades and my own in the sad loss of your husband, and to let you know that during all the hard fighting he did his duty nobly and bravely, as all the Australians have done. You have reason to be proud of him, and this should be a comfort to you and your family in your loss. I should have written before, but have myself been wounded in the same attack and sent to England."