One of twelve children born to William and Mary Cornwall, Robert was the seventh child and the fourth son in the family. Robert and his siblings attended school in Goon Nure and several of them married and stayed in the district. At six-foot-tall, Robert was an able labourer when he enlisted with the 5 th  Infantry just one week before Christmas in 1914. Just four months later he was on board the Wiltshire  heading to Gallipoli arriving there at the end of May. He was transferred firstly to the Casualty Clearing Station on Mudros for gastro-enteritis and bronchitis at the end of August and then onto 1 st  London General Hospital on 1 September. At the same time his mother wrote to Base Records saying it is not much wonder he is ill as he has been in the trenches since May but he has a good constitution and I sincerely hope will pull through. It was some time before he returned to duty and by March he was in Egypt. He was ill again shortly after and re-joined his unit who by this time were in Belgium. In early August, Robert Cornwall was admitted to No. 2 Australian General Hospital, Boulogne after receiving gunshot wounds to his left arm and left buttock and died at 1.45 a.m. on 4 August. He was buried at 2.00 p.m. that afternoon at Wimereux Cemetery five miles north of Boulogne. Robert is remembered on the Bairnsdale and Goon Nure honour rolls. Robert’s older brother James also served ad returned safely to Australia at the end of the war and their cousin, Gilbert Glenn was wounded several times and also returned home in May 1918. At the end of the month, after Robert had died, his mother wrote a pleading letter to Base Records asking … Can you please let me know any more particulars in regard to the death of my laddie Private R.C. Cornwall I have tried to be patient but all through it has been very hard as the whole five months he was in Gallipoli he never got a letter from home and all the time he was in France he hardly got any …