Notes
The school website (see References) provides this biography: 'Claude William Robertson was born on 10 September 1869 in Blackheath, Kent, the third child of Charles Robertson of Godalming, artist and member of the Royal Water Colour Society, and Alice Mary Lonsdale. He was at Charterhouse as a day boy between 1883-1887 and was a member of the Shooting VIII 1885-1887, serving as team Captain in 1887. He joined the Royal Marine Light Infantry in 1889 and served as part of the Benin Expeditionary Force in 1897, receiving the Medal and Clasp for the Expedition. He was serving on the Australian Station in HMS Tauranga when the Boer War was announced; he subsequently volunteered for the New South Wales Bushmen, commanding the B Company. He was killed in action at Koester River, South Africa, on 22 July 1900; he left behind his wife Edith Holcombe Johnson, whom he had married on 24 February 1900.
A letter from Major-General Robert Baden-Powell (OC) was published in the December 1900 edition of The Carthusian:
“Captain Claude Robertson was one of the best and most reliable officers in this force of Bushmen… On this fatal occasion he went with a force of 300 men under Colonel Airey, D.S.O., to assist another party of Bushmen to come and join us. Only 7 miles out Col. Airey came on the Boers holding a strong position on the road. He attacked with all the dash and gallantry for which the Bushmen are famed – alas! They have too much of it: they disdain cover too much. However, the officers got them into cover and then Robertson exposed himself while showing one of his men where to fire, and was struck dead by a bullet from the Boers. Happily he cannot have suffered any pain. We brought him in to Rustenberg and laid him in the pretty little Cemetery, with all the solemnity of a full military funeral. It is proposed to raise a monument to him, and to those who fell with him, so soon as things become more settle here”.'