Robert Toye

Bank: Ulster Bank

Place of work: not known

Died: 6 August 1917

Robert Ernest Toye was born in Garvagh, County Derry, in 1890. He worked for Ulster Bank.

In September 1914 Toye left his job as a bank accountant to join the army, only the second man from Ulster Bank to volunteer. By 1917 he was a Company Quartermaster Serjeant in the Royal Irish Rifles. He was killed when a shell exploded close to him at a ration dump at Weiltje, near Ypres, Belgium, on 6 August 1917. He was 26 years old.

His obituary in the bank's staff magazine recalled, 'Toye was of a quiet amiable disposition and a general favourite. His loss will be mourned by a wide circle of friends. A chum wrote of him that he was 'a straight man and a true friend'.'

Robert Toye is commemorated on two memorials at Ulster Bank’s Belfast head office: its roll of honour for staff who served in the First World War and its memorial for those who fell.