The torment suffered by a wealthy businessman from Huddersfield whose son went missing on July 1 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, exactly 100 years ago, has been highlighted.

It comes in a series of heartbreaking letters that were exchanged with other members of his family.

Whiteley Tolson’s misery, after his son Robert went missing during the Leeds Pals’ advance towards the German front line south-west of the village of Serre, has been cited in a new book on the battle by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore.

The Tolson Museum was later left to Huddersfield in his memory and also of his brother 2nd Lt James Tolson.

The first telegraph telling the Tolson family in Huddersfield that something was wrong arrived six days after the battle.

According to the chaplain of the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment (the Leeds Pals), Whiteley Tolson’s son, 31-year-old 2nd Lt Robert Tolson, had been wounded and Robert’s wife Zoe and his family would probably see him soon.

But that was the high point. The first communication was to be followed by a series of more and more pessimistic guesstimates of what had happened to the unfortunate young man.

Watch: Tragedy of the Somme: Pain and loss that has lasted for generations

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First there was a note saying that he had not been traced in any of the hospitals in France and was therefore officially ‘missing’. Then there was a follow up letter stating that the chaplain believed he must have been killed.

But because the chaplain could not refer to any evidence supporting his theory, other than that Robert had disappeared, the Tolsons in Huddersfield and also in Leeds clung to the hope that there was some other explanation.

The family were still waiting for news at the end of July. On July 27 Newcombe Wright, a cousin, went over to see the remains of the battalion in France and then wrote to Whiteley Tolson, telling him the Battalion had been more or less ‘wiped out’ by machine gun fire.

However, he added: “There is one gleam of hope. I am told that although the Germans, when the barrage stopped, would not let our stretcher bearers beyond our own wire, their parties picked up a very few wounded of ours. It is just within the bounds of possibility that Robert was picked up by them.”

Whiteley Tolson and sons

The cousin’s theory evidently did not appeal to Whiteley. At the end of July he wrote to his older son Gerald: “Personally, my hopes that Robert is a prisoner are faint. No private soldier suggests with any force there is any possibility of Robert being a prisoner. If mentioned at all, it is said in a comforting sort of way as a last resource.”

In a subsequent letter he revealed the pain he was suffering: “It was a murderous situation to charge into No Man’s Land with the Germans so well prepared with machine guns. Robert was sacrificed and many a hundred besides (The Leeds Pals suffered over 500 casualties). It makes me have a sinking, sick feeling to imagine his end, perhaps bleeding to death, for Newcombe heard he was wounded in the neck.”

But still, he could not let the matter rest. As he wrote to Gerald: “Zoe still clings to the hope that Robert is a prisoner.”

It was September before they received any hard evidence concerning Robert’s fate. Out of the blue they received a letter from the Red Cross stating that a Private Jepson, who was in a hospital in Epsom, had fallen into a trench right on to the dead body of Lieutenant Tolson.

“Robert was stretched out, face downwards, arms extended. His body was cold and stiff and his eyes were closed,” Gerald informed his uncle Legh Tolson.

Whiteley wrote back to his son, who had also filled him in: “Words fail me to express my horror of his dreadful end. There is no glory in it for me. It was downright wicked murder!”

Robert Huntriss Tolson
Robert Huntriss Tolson

'It was downright wicked murder!'

The problem with Jepson’s account was that he had been half blinded by the blood coming from the wound on his face. However, approximately six weeks later, an even clearer report came in from a lance corporal who had seen Robert lying in the British front line trench.

“I took him to be dead,” he said. “I cannot understand how he has been reported missing, unless the trench was blown in and he got buried.”

It was March, in the following year before definitive proof was discovered of Robert’s death. After the Germans moved out of Serre his body was recovered and he was given a proper burial. Only then did the Tolsons of Huddersfield have the closure they had been seeking.

The letters referred to in this article are featured in a DVD made by Huddersfield’s Tolson Museum, which was donated to the town by Whiteley Tolson’s brother Legh in memory of his two nephews who died on the Western Front.

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s Somme: Into The Breach is published by Viking Penguin, price £25.

Historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's book Into The Breach
Historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's book Into The Breach