LIEUTENANT SIR ROBERT (ROBIN) GEORGE VIVIAN DUFF
1ST LIFE GUARDS
16TH OCTOBER 1914 AGE 37
BURIED: CEMENT HOUSE CEMETERY, LANGEMARK, BELGIUM
Lieutenant Sir Robin Duff's widow, Lady Juliet, quotes from John Milton's Samson Agonistes for her husband's inscription:
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast; no weakness no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame; nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Sir Robin was killed by a sniper whilst reconnoitering a heavily defended farm outside the Belgian village of Oostnieukerke. Originally buried in the churchyard at Oostnieukerke, his body was exhumed and reinterred in 1952.
Sir Robin was the only son of Sir Charles Garden Assheton-Smith who died on 24 September 1914. He attended his father's funeral in uniform and was dead himself twenty-two days later. His seven-year-old son inherited the baronetcy.