b. 2nd Quarter 1883 Thame, Oxfordshire. d. 1st Quarter 1939 Dartford, Kent.
DATE OF EM ACTION: 26/07/1911 Cliffe, Kent.
Herbert was born in 1883 in Thame, Oxfordshire, the 6th of 9 children born to Robert and Elizabeth Dobinson. Both of his parents came from Oxfordshire, but soon after Herbert’s birth, the family moved to Waltham Abbey, Essex, where Robert worked as a harness maker. Little is known what happened to Herbert next, until in the 1911 Census, he is recorded living at 2 May Cottage in Cliffe, Kent, with his wife Elizabeth and two sons, Herbert and Arthur. Following the award of his Edward Medal, Herbert again disappears into obscurity. He died in the early months of 1939 in Dartford, Kent, aged 55.
EM CITATION:
On the 26th of July, 1911, a serious explosion took place at an Explosives Factory belonging to Messrs. Curtis’s and Harvey Limited, at Cliffe, in the county of Kent, resultiug in the death of three men and serious injury to three others. The explosion took place in one of the nitro-glycerine washing and filtering houses a few minutes after Dobinson had left the building. He was knocked down by the force of the explosion, but heard a fellow workman named J. Wordley call for help. Wordley had been blown by the explosion under a guncotton truck, which had caught fire, and was quite unable to do anything to free himself. Dobinson, without knowing the nature of the burning explosive, returned to the shed, ran in at the imminent risk of being killed by a further explosion, and released Wordley from his perilous position.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
