Soldier – Danks, Robt Lee – Military Funeral at Mexborough

October 1915

Mexborough Times, October 16th 1915

A Denaby soldier Dies at Sunderland.
Military funeral at Mexborough

Private R.L. Danks

Another military funeral took place in Mexborough on Thursday, and private Robert Lee Danks (third Yorks and Lancs), 56, Warmsworth Street, Denaby Main, was laid to rest in the cemetery, with full military honours.

The event attracted a large crowd, but in consequence of the serious damage occasioned at a recent military funeral the public were excluded from the cemetery.

Private Danks was well known in this district. He was 43 years of age, and had re-enlisted in the York and Lancaster Regiment for the period of the war. He was admitted last week into the Jeffrey Hall, auxiliary hospital, Sunderland, with a diseased foot, and was to be operated upon on Saturday, but he died suddenly on the same day.

He was formerly a member of the Denaby Ambulance Corps, members of which, together with the ambulance band, attended the funeral to pay a parting tribute to their late comrade. The band of the first Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, under bandmaster A.Grahame, arrived from Pontefract at two o’clock, and proceeding to Denaby, headed the funeral cortege. Immediately following them was the band of the Denaby ambulance Corps, under bandmaster M. Soar this, and the “Dead March” in Saul and Chopin’s “Funeral March”, who played by these bands along the route to the cemetery.

The reverent C.W.Swann (Mexborough) conduct of the burial service, and at the conclusion of the committal a firing party, drawn up under the direction of colour Sgt Girdier and Sgt Sivorn, fired three volleys. Then two buglers of the first Yorks and Lancs sounded the “Last Post.”

Returning from t he cemetery the regimental band played another march, “For Countries Flag”