Service number: G/10845 | Rank: Private | Regiment: Middlesex Regiment
Killed in action, August 22 1918, in Flanders. Aged 23.
Buried at SERRE ROAD CEMETERY No. 2, Somme, France.
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT ARTHUR …
Arthur was born in 1895 to Henry and Eliza Kent who lived in Thetford Road, Brandon. Henry was a labourer in a local timber yard and Eliza pulled fur from rabbit skins for a local fur factory. In 1901 the family’s small home was a very crowded one. Not only did 6-year-old Arthur and his parents live there, but there was also Arthur’s many brothers and sisters – Ernest (23), Charlotte (21) and Fred (14), who were all working; along with Frank (12), Percy (10), Lily (7) and Edward (4), who were all at school. By the next Census in 1911 Arthur’s family life was less crowded. He was living along London Road with his parents and the only other person in the house was his brother Percy. Arthur and Percy were both teenagers who were employed as gardeners in the town.
By the time war was declared Arthur had left Brandon and was living at 15 Salisbury Road, Enfield Lock, London, with his wife Florence. He enlisted at Mill Hill in Middlesex and went into the Middlesex Regiment.
In 1918 the War Office notified Arthur’s parents that he had been killed in action and this was their second loss in ten months. In October 1917 they lost their youngest son, Edward, who had also been killed in France and now they had lost their second youngest son. Arthur was 23 years old when he was killed.