SECOND LIEUTENANT ROBERT CHARLES EVANS
WELSH REGIMENT
24TH AUGUST 1918 AGE 36
BURIED: POZIERES BRITISH CEMETERY, OVILLERS-LA-BOISELLE, FRANCE
This is yet another inscription from Tennyson's In Memoriam. It comes from section CXXVII, the section that begins:
And all is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear;
The poem goes on to describe an apocalyptic scene before asserting that even in the midst of all this chaos, even while "compass'd by the fires of Hell",
Thou, dear spirit, happy star,
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar,
And smilest, knowing all is well.
The smiling person is Tennyson's dead friend Arthur Hallam, and the implication is that once we are dead and with God in heaven, we can be assured that all will be well whatever is happening on earth.
Robert Evans was a solicitor. He served initially as a serjeant with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Commissioned in March 1917, he served with the 57th training reserve battalion before going to France in 1918. He was killed during the Battle of Albert; shot dead by a German prisoner.
A married man with one child, I think it was his wife, Edith, who chose his inscription. The War Graves Commission's records say Mrs AC Evans but that's probably a mis-type for Mrs RC Evans.