Notes
The Roll lists his address as Ivydale, 8 Lincoln Road, New England. (It also lists his brother Samuel). The Roll states that Robert: "Died from wounds and starvation 19 January 1919 at Fulham Military Hospital, being repatriated from Germany as a prisoner of war on 1st January 1917, after having been cruelly treated by the enemy".
(CWGC records that Private Robert William Varder, regimental number 13188, died aged 22 on 19/1/1919 having served in the 6th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment, and is buried near the south-west part of Paston All Saints' Churchyard near Peterborough. They record him as a repatriated Prisoner of War, and as the son of Jane Varder of 8 Lincoln Road, Walton, Peterborough and the late Samuel Varder.
According to The Scotsman published on 24/1/1919, Robert was not repatriated until after the Armistice, when he was brought via Brussels and Boulogne to England.
On the 1911 census Robert had been living with his parents Samuel and Jane at Husthwaite, Easingwold in Yorkshire; his place of birth was given as Penpont, Dumfriesshire. The Medal Rolls record that he was sent to France on 26/7/1915. The Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects record that he died in Fulham and that his father Samuel was his legatee.
Robert's death at the age of 22 was registered in Fulham District in 1919. On 31/1/1919 the Northampton Mercury reported the results of the inquest held at Fulham on 23/1/1919. Robert Varder, described as a Peterborough man, was stated at the inquest to have enlisted in 1914, while under age. At that time he had weighed more than 11 stone and was an athlete; in January 1919 he weighed 4 stone. The inquest heard that, while a Prisoner of War, Robert had been struck with a rifle by a prison guard, which had left him with an infected wound for which he had received inadequate medical treatment. The verdict of the inquest was that Robert's "death was due to septic poisoning caused by the blow and by the gross neglect of the German authorities").