New Zealander Private Robert Macgregor Mackintosh was killed in action on 4th October 1917 at Ypres. He was 27 years old.
Robert was born in Aberdeen on 30 April 1890, son of James Mackintosh and Jane née MacGregor. Robert’s connection with Rogart was through his father, James, a seed merchant who left the family home at Balchlaggan, around 1874 and went to work in Aberdeen and thence to Edinburgh. The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1897.
Robert was a farm labourer working for S E Rutherford at Kowai Bush in North Canterbury when he enlisted, on 27 June 1916, in the Canterbury Infantry and was given the service number 29274. His next of kin was listed as his mother Jane, of 1 Division Road, Lower Riccarton, Christchurch as his father had died in 1914. He embarked for Europe in October 1916, arriving in Plymouth on 29 December. They went by train to Sling Camp on the Salisbury Plain for battle training. He was there for almost seven months but finally shipped out for France on 6 July 1917. By 17 July 1917 he was at the battle front. Three months later Robert was killed in action in Belgium on 4 October 1917.
Robert’s body was not found so he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot memorial for the missing in Belgium and the Rogart war memorial. In New Zealand he is recorded on the Upper Riccarton Memorial Library Roll of Honour, the Scottish Society of New Zealand Roll of Honour (above) and on his parent’s headstone at Linwood Cemetery, Christchurch.
His brother, Alexander Murray MacKintosh, serial number 48979, also served in the war and was wounded in 1918 but lived on until 1973.