Name
Arthur Pearce
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
20819
Bedfordshire Regiment
8th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Pirton School Memorial
Biography
Arthur appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school. Parish records suggest only one man of this name who could have served, and he was baptised on January 1st 1896, the son of Charles and Naomi Pearce (née Hare). Baptism and census records list six children but, by 1911, two had died and so had their mother Naomi (d 1906). The children were; Jane (b 1888), John (b 1890), Albert (b 1892), Arthur (b 1896), Alfred (b 1898, d 1899, aged one year) and Frederick Charles (b c1904). Arthur’s elder brother John also served and survived.
In 1911, Arthur was fifteen, still living in the family home, which was one of the Handscombe Cottages, Burge End - the row of terraced cottages in Shillington Road - and was earning a living as a farm labourer on one of the local farms.
Arthur is recorded in the Parish Magazine of September 1915 as enlisting sometime during 1915, but before August, and serving in the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment as Private 20819. He would have been nineteen years old. The North Herts Mail confirms that, before the war, he worked for Thomas Franklin and that he went to the Front in February 1916. He was reported missing on April 19th, but subsequently on May 9th, to his family’s great relief, he was confirmed as a prisoner of war and in Germany. What a worrying five weeks that must have been for those that knew him. In August he was in Gresham Camp and had written that he is all right, and sends no complaint and that he receives parcels from home and the Regiment.
The North Herts Mail of October 20th 1917 reports that ‘Lance Corporal Arthur Pearce had sent home to Mrs Joan Burton of Burge End a photograph of the memorial to the Irish who died at Limbury.’ This must have been while he was a prisoner of war. One theory, which might explain the photograph, is that as there was a prison camp at Limburg an der Lahn, which sometimes appears as Limbury an der Lahn, he may have spent time in that camp - although it seems that it predominantly held Irish prisoners of war. Perhaps the prisoners themselves erected some sort of memorial to men who died, either in the camp or in the battles in which they were captured. If this is correct, then his time there may have overlapped with Charles Titmuss, who also appears to have spent time there.
The Hertfordshire Express of December 1st 1917 confirms that he was still a prisoner of war, but now in Giesson, presumably having been transferred there from Limbury.
Pirton resident Ron Burton recalled being told that at one time ‘the POWs were so hungry that they ate grass’; he also confirmed that Arthur was the brother of John Pearce who also served and survived.
By 1918, he was recorded as 20819 (should be Lance Corporal), 8th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment with his home address as Handscombe's Cottages, Burge End.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission, Ron Burton
