Able Seaman Robert Anderson Reid, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, was the son of Robert and Mary Reid (née Anderson) of 79 Earlspark Avenue, Newlands. Glasgow. His father was an upholsterer, born in Irvine, Ayrshire and his mother was from Haddington, Haddingtonshire (now East Lothian).

He was born in Mount Florida on the 20th of September 1893 and was educated at Shawlands Academy and when mobilisation for WW1 took place he was employed by Messrs. Welch, Margetson and Co as a warehouseman.

On the 15th of January 1912, at 18 years of age, Robert Anderson Reid enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He joined the Royal Naval Division, Nelson Battalion on the 22nd of August 1914, participating in the defence of Antwerp 28th September – 10th October 1914. The RND was formed on the outbreak of war when the newly-mobilised Royal Navy found it had too many men and too few duties for them. The unused sailors were formed into battalions, joined Royal Marines Light Infantry and Royal Marines Artillery and this formed the Royal Naval Division.

After barely six weeks of rudimentary training the first elements of the division were dispatched to the continent to bolster Belgian forces holding Antwerp. They had no engineers, no medical services, no logistical support. Many of the men didn’t even have canteens or packs. But in the first week of October 1914, the division was thrown into action in Belgium to hold the crucial port of Antwerp. The Germans took Antwerp on the 11th of October, with the RND withdrawing in confusion not long before the city fell.

Robert was discharged from the RND on October 27th 1914 and sent to HMS Vivid, the Naval base at Devonport until, on 24th Nov 1914, he was assigned to the Laurentic. He remained with the Laurentic till his death when the ship was sunk in January 1917.

Robert was on the Laurentic on the 3rd of December 1914 when the ship set sail for Sierra Leone and then Lagos to assist with the Cameroon Campaign, transporting troops and carrying out general patrols. On January 30, the Laurentic returned to Liverpool and disembarked German prisoners brought back from Lagos. The Laurentic then returned to Sierra Leone, arriving on the 5th of March 1915.

By early August the Laurentic was on route to Singapore and spent the next 10 months on patrol around Rangoon and Hong Kong. In July 1916 it sailed back to South Africa. There followed two months general patrol in the area, sailing for Bermuda, then returning to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Laurentic returned to Liverpool, carrying Royal Canadian Navy officers, rated seamen and Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserves, arriving in early December 1916. The crew were given a short period of shore leave, returning to the ship on the 22nd of December. The ship sailed out of the port of Liverpool again on 24th January, 1917, on route to Halifax on what would be her last voyage.

Robert Anderson Reid’s body was never recovered.

The Daily Record, Glasgow, 9th Feb 1917

The 1914 Star was issued to his father on the 26th of February 1919 and the clasp issued on the 27th of January 1922

Sources:-

Census Census Returns of England and Wales 1901 and 1911: The National Archives of the UK
Royal Naval Division service records 1914-1919, The National Archives of the UK: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
General Register Office England and Wales  http://www.gro.gov.uk
The British Newspaper Archive http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/63rd-royal-naval-division