Robert was born in Oxford in 1880. Robert was appointed a postman for the London General Post Office in South West London in 1902. He married Susan Ellen Jenkyn in 1910; they lived at 75 Mallinson Road in South West London, between Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common. They welcomed a son, John Robert, in November 1911.

After the First World War began, Robert enlisted in the army in about May 1915. He joined the London Regiment, 8th (City of London) Battalion (Post Office Rifles) and proceeded to France very shortly after. One year and three months later, Robert died of wounds and is buried at Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension on the Somme. His second son, Frederick James, had been born just five months before his father’s death.