Name
Arthur Walker
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
85912
Kings Liverpool Regiment
13th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Pirton School Memorial
Biography
There were three Arthur Walkers who served; one died and is listed on the Village War Memorial, a second, Arthur Robert, served with the Canadians and is detailed below and the third is the man detailed here.
This Arthur appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school.
A newspaper cutting, mostly relating to Hubert Walker, reveals that their parents were James and Ann Walker of Little Green Farm, (now demolished, but was to the rear of Elm Tree Farm and the new development off Hambridge Way). It also confirms his elder brother as Hubert James and that another brother, who must have been either Harry or Jesse, was at home working on the farm as their father was an invalid. Arthur was born on October 2nd 1892 and would have been twenty-one at the outbreak of war. Baptism records list seven children: Abram Frank (bapt 1877), Harry (b 1879), Daisy Helen (b 1881), Hubert James (b 1883), Ida (b 1885), Jesse (b 1889) and Arthur (b 1892). His brother, Hubert James, also served and survived.
The 1911 census confirms that Arthur, like his brothers Hubert and Jesse, was living and working on his father’s farm, Little Green Farm. ‘A Farmer’s son working on farm’.
Another newspaper cutting, which is undated, reports that Arthur first served in the Bedfordshire Yeomanry but was transferred to the Liverpool Regiment. He had been in France for eight months when, on March 22nd 1918, he was shot in the leg and thigh. He was sent to the 4th General Hospital, but sadly, as a result of the wounds, his leg was amputated.
In the 1918 Absent Voters’ List he was recorded as Private 85912, 13th Battalion, Kings Liverpool Regiment, with his home address the same as his brother Hubert’s, Little Green Farm.
A memorial in St. Mary’s churchyard records that Arthur was married to Gladys Jessie. They had their first daughter, Elsie, sometime around 1918 and a second daughter on July 22nd 1923, but Gladys died in child-birth at just thirty, so his daughter was christened Gladys Jessie. Arthur died in 1983, when he would have been about ninety.
Additional Information
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
