Hello, I hope someone can confirm whether this is true or not. A lot of years ago, I visited a distant relative in Newbiggen and after confirming our connections with the Burgon family of Eyemouth she told me that her/our ancestor Robert Robinson (1863) was involved in a cobble accident in 1915 and the only thing they found was his leg.  Hence, this is buried in Newbiggen cemetery.  I found this hard to believe but took her word for it.  I can't find anything online about such a burial.  I have a photograph from a newspaper stating he drowned in 1915. On 18th August 1900 Robert received the Royal Humane Society medal.  J. Armstrong, a crew member, was accidentally knocked overboard some 4 miles off the Northumberland coast and at great risk Robert jumped in and supported him for some 15 minutes until they were saved by a small boat. Does anyone know anything about this and if the leg story is true? Kind regards Yvonne

On 02/09/2014 11:14, Yvonne via wrote: > <snip> ... Robert Robinson (1863) was involved in a cobble accident in 1915 and the only thing they found was his leg <snip> Hi Yvonne ... I found two newspaper references to this accident: Sunderland Daily Echo, Friday 19 March 1915 - p2, col 5 Newcastle Journal, Saturday 20 March 1915 - p7, col 4 Both these name the three people from this coble i.e. William Twizell 50, John Twizell 45 and Robert Robinson 55. In the 1911 census ages of these three in Newbiggin were:- William Twizell 47, John Lisle Twizell 42 and Robert Robinson, so ages quoted at death may be a bit out. However, in FreeBMD, although there is a death registered for William Twizell [1915 (Jun) Morpeth 10b 596], there does not appear any record of the death of either John Twizell or Robert Robinson. I did wonder if they had not actually perished in the accident, but Administration of all three estates are listed in the National Probate Calendar (via Ancestry) for 1915 ... dates of death all recorded as 18 March 1915 at sea. In the light of your "leg" story could it be that whatever remains were found of John Twizell and Robert Robinson were not able to be identified sufficiently to register as a regular death? Perhaps a torso is required in order for the death to be confirmed? I'm sure one of our gurus could throw some light on this regulation. Kath

Yvonne: This is not, I'm afraid, the answer to your query, but just a little pedantic niggle of mine. I note that in your original question your referred to a "cobble", but in her reply Kath calls it a "coble". In Northumberland these well-adapted fishing boats are always spelled coble and pronounced co-bul, ie with a long "o". A little further south, in Yorkshire, where they are also used, they are pronounced cobble, ie with a short "o" as in the stones used for paving roads, though I'm not sure how that is usually spelled. This may sound like trivia but I can assure you that in Northumberland fishing villages such as Newbiggen used to be it is far from that! Geoff Nicholson -----Original Message----- From: Kath Liddell via <northumbria@rootsweb.com> To: northumbria <northumbria@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 14:13 Subject: Re: [NMB] ROBINSON - Fisherman's leg buried at Newbiggen cemetery On 02/09/2014 11:14, Yvonne via wrote: > <snip> ... Robert Robinson (1863) was involved in a cobble accident in 1915 and the only thing they found was his leg <snip> Hi Yvonne ... I found two newspaper references to this accident: Sunderland Daily Echo, Friday 19 March 1915 - p2, col 5 Newcastle Journal, Saturday 20 March 1915 - p7, col 4 Both these name the three people from this coble i.e. William Twizell 50, John Twizell 45 and Robert Robinson 55. In the 1911 census ages of these three in Newbiggin were:- William Twizell 47, John Lisle Twizell 42 and Robert Robinson, so ages quoted at death may be a bit out. However, in FreeBMD, although there is a death registered for William Twizell [1915 (Jun) Morpeth 10b 596], there does not appear any record of the death of either John Twizell or Robert Robinson. I did wonder if they had not actually perished in the accident, but Administration of all three estates are listed in the National Probate Calendar (via Ancestry) for 1915 ... dates of death all recorded as 18 March 1915 at sea. In the light of your "leg" story could it be that whatever remains were found of John Twizell and Robert Robinson were not able to be identified sufficiently to register as a regular death? Perhaps a torso is required in order for the death to be confirmed? I'm sure one of our gurus could throw some light on this regulation. Kath .. Please quote the minimum necessary to put your reply on context. Please introduce yourself at the top of every post. The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NORTHUMBRIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message