Sergeant, 1/6th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment. Service number 267654.
Early life:
Arthur was born in Keighley on July 30, 1891 and baptised on September 9 at St Peter’s Church in Keighley. Parents
Thomas Edward and Mary Ann Smith. They lived on Arthur Street and Thomas was a mechanic.
In 1901 he was nine years old and living at 3, Bright Street with his parents, three brothers and two sisters.
Thomas was an iron turner and fitter. By 1911 he was nineteen and still living at 3, Bright Street with his parents, his widowed paternal grandmother, three brothers and three sisters. Thomas was an engineer and iron turner making washing and wringing machines, and Arthur was an engineer and fitter making textile machinery and spinning frames for Hall and Stell Ltd.
On March 25, 1913, 21 year old Arthur married 23 year old worsted stuff weaver Martha Mason, at the Primitive Methodist Chapel on Alice Street in Keighley. Arthur was at 3, Bright Street and Martha at 32, Oakworth Hall.
War service:
Arthur was serving in the 6th Battalion, West Riding Regiment (Territorials) in Keighley with the service no. 1385, when war broke out. He embarked for France on April 12 and landed in Boulogne the next day. He was discharged on May 6, 1916 under his original terms of service but he would have almost definitely have carried on in service as he would have been out in France at the time. In early 1917 he would have been issued with the new service number 267654.
War diary account 1/6th Battalion West Riding Regiment, October 1917:
October 5. 6 pm: The Battalion moved up into the line, C & D Companies relieving the 2nd Auckland Battalion in the front line and A & B Companies relieving 1st Wellington Battalion in close support. Battalion Headquarters was at KANSAS HOUSE.
During the relief, before our Battalion reached the line, the S.O.S. was sent up by the troops in the front line & our guns put down a heavy barrage on the enemy’s line. Casualty: 2 Lt L. V. Belcher, A Company, wounded in leg by shell.
October 6: Rain fell in torrents most of the day, making the shell holes, which was about the only accommodation, more unpleasant for the men. Clearing the battlefield & burying of the dead was finished up with as quickly as possible.
Casualties: 267654 Sgt Smith, A., attached: 147 Machine Gun Company. Wounded by shell. Died of wounds.
Nine other casualties: 1 killed, 8 wounded.
Arthur was the man who died of wounds on 7th October and he was buried in grave 8, row E, plot I of Oxford Road Cemetery, to the North East of Ypres in Belgium.
Keighley News October 20, 1917 page 3:
WORTH VALLEY. Private Arthur Smith, who prior to the war was in the Territorial Force, has fallen this week in France. He was badly wounded and died before he reached the dressing station. Mrs Smith, who is left with her two children, received a letter from her husband by the same post as the letter conveying the sad intelligence of his death.
Keighley News October 27, 1917 page 3:
WORTH VALLEY.
Sergeant A. Smith, West Riding Regiment, of 7, Apsley Terrace, Oakworth, has died of wounds. He was formerly employed by Messrs. Hall & Stell, Ltd., textile machinery makers, Keighley, and had been in France since the outbreak of hostilities. His brother was killed in May last.*
Post war:
Arthur was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal for his war service.
Remembrance:
Arthur is remembered at his grave site in Oxford Road Cemetery, North East of Ypres in Belgium. The family inscription on the CWGC headstone reads: “The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended.”
He is locally remembered on the Oakworth War Memorial in Holden Park, Oakworth and on the Oakworth Great War Centenary roll of honour which is on display at Oakworth Community Hall in the village.
*Arthur’s brother who was killed on 3rd May 1916, was 1674 Private Tom Smith of the 16th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (Bradford Pals.)
