No. 41408 2nd/6th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment (Previously 21789, 10th Battalion Suffolk regiment), who died on 21st March 1918 aged 31.

Arthur has no known grave and is remembered at the Arras Memorial.

He was born Hasketon,1887, son of Joseph and Elizabeth Thompson and lived at Fairfield Cottages, Hasketon.

He died at Bullencourt, Amiens in 1918 during the German Spring Offensive.

Before the war he worked as a Cloakroom Attendant at the Cecil Hotel, London

Personal details

Arthur, and his older brother Walter Thompson, were the two youngest sons out of 10 children born to Labourer Joseph Thompson [b. Hasketon,1841] and Elizabeth Thompson [b. Melton, 1845]. The other siblings were all born in Hasketon: Morris, [1866] Andrew [1871] Alice Frances [1873] Josiah [1878] Ernest [c1888] Harry [1880] Walter [1889] Ellen [1882] Annie [c1878]. The family home was at Fairfield Cottages, Hasketon, currently the site of Fairfield house, Boulge Road.

Sometime after 1901 Arthur left Hasketon and moved to London, working as a cloakroom attendant at the Cecil Hotel, and living, by the 1911 census, in Cadogen St. Chelsea.   In London he met and married Ida Kaufman (Swiss) in October 1908.  By the time Arthur joined the army in 1915 they had 3 children, Helen, Otto George and Ellen Gladys.

Arthurs oldest brother Morris had three children, Gladys, Stanley and Nellie.  Stanley, Arthur’s nephew, was also killed during the war – see separate pages.

War service.

Arthurs Medal Roll index card show he was awarded the Victory and British medals. 

His army Service Records do exist and are available on line, though they are not fully legible.  They indicate he enlisted on 25th September 1915 and joined the 10th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment which was then a training battalion and also responsible for defending the coast in the Dovercourt area. In January 1917 he was appointed acting Sergeant.

In Feb 1918 he was transferred to the 2nd/6th Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment, though unfortunately no details of this transfer are available.

On March 19th the 2/6 Battalion moved into the front line near Bullencourt, Amiens.   On March 21st the German Spring offensive began and the Battalion lost over 800 hundred men, including Arthur, on the first day.

From the regimental diary:

“Enemy opened an exceptionally heavy barrage on the front, support and rear lines with shells of every calibre. The enemy attacked in large numbers and broke through on the right flank of the Battalion and reached the HOGS BACK, completely cutting off the Battalion.”

The following page from the Battalion diary describes the day’s events.