Sapper Robert Niven Main’s collection of sketches from the Great War published at The Canadian Letters and Images Project.
Robert Niven Main 1333 born in Burghead, Morayshire, Scotland on November 14, 1882 and emigrated to Canada in 1910. A 1st Class Carpenter married, with three children, to Catherine Main of Vancouver, BC. A nine-year-old son David, and six-year-old son Alexander both passed away in 1914.
Robert had spent three years at sea prior to coming to Canada.
Canadian Engineers
Proceed overseas with 12th Field Coy, Canadian Engineers, 1 June 1916.
Mont St Eloi
Passchendaele
While at Passchendaele, Sapper Robert Niven Main began to shake and go into shivers. Could not stand it at all.
Leave of Absence
Granted an LOA on 18-12-17.
Aberdeen Military Hospital
Detained sick 22-12-17 in Scotland. Sapper Robert Niven Main admitted to hospital in England on 17-1-18.
Epsom Convalescent Hospital
Epsom Convalescent Hospital, 28 January 1918.
Neurasthenia
Temper is very fragile and suffers from extreme emotional irratability. Dreams at night of air raids, bombing and shelling. These are very real to him. Patient said when at Passchendaele, feared the air raids more than the artillery.
No. 4 Canadian General Hospital
Sapper Robert Niven Main admitted to No. 4 CGH on 14-4-18.
SoS to the CEF in Canada as low category, and unsuitable for employment in England, 8-10-18.
The Thin Bread Line
Main, a carpenter by trade, enlisted in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 15, 1916 with the Canadian Engineers and arrived in England aboard the SS Baltic on May 29, 1916.
He proceeded to France in August of 1916 where he served with the 6th and the 12th Field Company Canadian Engineers. As a result of action at Passchendaele in October 1917, he was diagnosed with neurasthenia (shell shock) and treated in Scotland and England during 1918. Main returned to Canada and was discharged as medically unfit in Vancouver on March 15, 1919.
The collection consists of fourteen drawings done by Main of scenes from the Western Front drawn on cardboard packing liners 5 inches by 7 inches in size.
Vimy Ridge
Souchez
Mentque Farm
The farm in Mentque-Norbécourt near Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais known as La Ferme du Nortbert.
Mud
Light off my soul
Portraits
Sunset
Army tombstones
Non-perishable rations of corned-beef and hardtack (also called ship’s biscuit, this dense cracker made of flour and water lasted for years but required a hammer or rifle butt to break safely without risking teeth).
Chateau Carency
All inn
Main entrance
Certificate of discharge
Death
Private Robert Niven Main died 15-3-48 and buried at Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, BC.
Survived by his wife and four daughters, all of Vancouver. Two grandchildren and one brother in Scotland.
Living at a farm
