The morning of February 16th 1918, Robert Percival Webber and three of his friends from school in Paris, Ontario were on route to attend their morning classes at the local high school, until one of them had a different idea. Together they changed their minds, got on a train, and made their ways to Toronto to enlist in the Great War.

“I think they just thought it’d be more fun than going to school that day,” said Frances McColl, Webber’s daughter. But perhaps the war did not turn out to be the adventure the friends had in mind.

The four boys all returned home safely but none of them ever spoke of the horrors they’d seen.

“ I don’t think any of them knew what they were getting into but he never expressed any regret that he had done that,” said McColl.

Robert Percival Webber was born May 31st, 1897. He served as a sapper in the 180th Battalion and fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Upon being discharged at the end of the war, McColl attended the University of Toronto. He graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts in politics in 1922. Shortly afterwards, he married a woman by the name of Edith Ross and began his career with the Toronto Telegram.

Robert was the financial editor of the paper but he also wrote a daily column entitled “How Thomas Richard Henry Sees It.” He would say it was about every man—any Tom, Dick, and Harry.

On April 9th every year, Robert Webber would write a special column dedicated to the monumental event in Canadian history.

In 1953, Webber, his wife Edith, and daughter Frances were blessed with the opportunity to go to France and visit Vimy Ridge as a family.

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.