Robert James WALL (1861-1876)

Robert James Wall (1861-1876) was the older brother of Mela Brown Constable’s mother, Clara.

Robert Wall was born on 8th November 1861 at Benares, India, the second of seven children of Joseph Wall and his wife, Madeline (née Dalby).  Robert was baptized at Benares on 30th January 1862.  Robert’s father, a schoolmaster at La Martinière College, Lucknow, was from Cheltenham originally, but moved to India in the 1850s where he married 15-year-old Madeline Dalby in Benares.  Joseph was one of seven staff at the school who was awarded the Indian Mutiny Medal in 1858 for his parts in the defence of Lucknow from 29th June to 22nd November 1857.

Robert was aged eight when his father died in 1870.  He was educated at La Martinière College, Lucknow, where his father had taught.

Robert died on 17th September 1876.  Forty years later, in a letter of 14th November 1916, his younger sister, Clara Brown Constable (who was grieving for her own son who had lost his life at the Somme and was trying to come to terms with the possibility that all the murder and bloodshed could be God’s will) recalled the words their mother had put on Robert’s gravestone:  “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight”.  She said that their mother could never resign herself to the loss of her son and mourned him till she died.