Name
Arthur James Caton
16 April 1889
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
22/01/1919
30
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Driver
159269
Royal Field Artillery
301st Brigade
'A' Battery
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ALEXANDRIA (HADRA) WAR MEMORIAL CEMETERY
C. 159.
Egypt
Headstone Inscription
JESUS CHRIST, GOD'S SON CLEANSETH US FROM ALL SIN
UK & Other Memorials
Anstey Village Memorial, St George's Church Memorial, Anstey, Royston Town Memorial, Royston Methodist Church
Pre War
Arthur James Caton was born on 16 April 1889 in Anstey, Hertfordshire, the son of James and Mary Caton and one of two children. His sister Edith Mary was born in 1891.
On the 1891 Census young Arthur was recorded as living with his 'uncle and aunt', Bush and Mary Obadiah at Almshouse Lane, Saffron Walden, Essex, where his uncle was a baker. Meanwhile, his parents and young sister Edith, aged 3 months, were living at Anstey where his father was the grocer at Anstey Stores. A 16 year old servant Alice Brooks was living with them. His mother died in 1898 aged 32 and in 1901 Arthur was living at High Hall Farm with his father, sister and housekeeper, Jessie Ferridge. His father was a tenant farmer at High Hall, farming 99 acres and also farmed 70 acres in Nuthampstead on land belonging to Baron Dimsdale.
His father married Jessie Ferridge in 1902 in Ashford, Kent, and they were living at High Hall Farm in 1911 with Arthur and Edith as well as Arthur's step sisters Ethel born 1905 and Constance, born 1910. At that time Arthur was working on the farm and later lived at Denmark House, Royston, Herts, his father and stepmother having moved there in 1915.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in May 1915 volunteering for four years service with the Hertfordshire Yeomanry but was discharged after 57 days on 12 July as "not being likely to become an efficient soldier. However, he was conscripted later in the war and sent to Egypt as a driver with the Royal Field Artillery, A Battery, 301st Brigade. As a driver he would have been in charge of the horses pulling ambulances, guns or other equipment.
Arthur was admitted to hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, when he became ill with enteritis and died there on 22 January 1919, aged 30. He is buried in the Alexandria (Hadra) War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt.
Additional Information
A war gratuity of £14 and pay owing of £9 13s 8d was shared between his father and sister Edith (father two thirds, Edith one third). His father obtained probate of Arthur's estate on 14 August 1920 in London with effects of £348 15s 4d. His father's occupation was then given as 'retired grocer'.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Malcolm Lennox, Paul Johnson, www.ansteyvillage.co.uk
