Name
Arthur Frank Hobbs
1887
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
16/05/1915
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
7938
Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 (Mons) Star (with Clasp & Roses), British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LE TOURET MEMORIAL
Panel 26.
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Radlett Town Memorial, Christchurch Memorial, Radlett
Pre War
Arthur Frank Hobbs was born in 1887 in Crockerton, Wiltshire, the eldest son of Frank and Sarah Hobbs.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Lower Road, Westbury, Wiltshire where his father was working as a Brickyard Labourer. They had moved to Norwood, Middlesex in 1901 and Arthur was working as a Carpenter's Labourer.
By the 1911 Census, Arthur was in India and a Private in the 1st Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry but his parents and siblings had moved to 7 Watford Road, Radlett, Herts.
(N.B. His parents Frank Whatley and Sarah Gray were married in Westbury in 1886. They and Frank's grandparents seem to have sometimes used the surname Whatley-Hobbs, later dropping the Whatley and settling on Hobbs alone)
Wartime Service
At the outbreak of war Arthur was already a serving soldier in (or a reservist of) the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. He served with the 2nd Battalion in France which landed at Boulogne on 14 August 1914.
He was killed in action on 16 May 1915 at Richebourg l'Avoue during the Battle of Festubert. He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, France.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £5 and pay owing of £14 3s 2d. His mother applied for a pension, giving her address as 45 Pomeroy Street, New Cross, S E [London] but there is no record of one being received.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
