Able Seaman Robert Lawson Beven (P/JX 169806) was born at Woolston, a suburb of Southampton. His father was a boiler maker who had moved with his family from Sunderland to work in the shipyard at Woolston.
Robert was born on May 15th, 1919, the fifth child of John Thomas Lawson Beven and Dorothy Anne Beven, née Baxter.