Name
Arnold Bosanquet Thompson
1886
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
25/12/1915
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Royal Army Medical Corps
1st/3rd (East Lancashire) Field Ambulance
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LANCASHIRE LANDING CEMETERY
L. 19.
Turkey (including Gallipoli)
Headstone Inscription
New College Oxford, M.B. Killed By Shellfire
UK & Other Memorials
Bengeo School Memorial – Location to be confirmed, Haileybury College Cloister Wall Memorial, Hertford Heath, Haileybury College Memorial, Hertford Heath, Haileybury College Chapel Roll of Honour, Hertford Heath, Roll of Honour St Mary’s Church, Kippimgton Kent, New College WW1 Oxford Oxfordshire
Pre War
Arnold Bosanquet Thompson was born on 3rd November 1886 in Wandsworth and baptised on 22nd December at St Michael, Battersea. His parents were Arthur and Alice Elizabeth (nee Greenhill) and he had four brothers and two sisters.
In 1891 he was living at Linkfield Lane, Reigate, Surrey, where his father is listed as an East India Merchant.
Arnold was educated at Bengeo and Haileybury College from 1901 to 1903 and then at New College Oxford and finally at the London Hospital, where he graduated M.B. in 1914. He was appointed House Surgeon at the Poplar Hospital where he was until Feb 1915.
Wartime Service
He obtained a commission as Lieutenant in R.A.M.C.(TF) on 28th April 1915, he landed in Gallipoli on 7th June 1915. He was promoted to Captain in October the same year.
He died of wounds received whilst he was on the beach after the evacuation had taken place, when the beach came under shell fire. He died on Christmas Day. There are conflicting reports on his whereabouts when he was killed, some say that he was at Suvla Bay or Anzac Cove but these had been evacuated five days earlier and as he died on 25th December he was probably at Helles as he is buried at Lancashire Landing cemetery.
Additional Information
His father, A Thompson Esq., of Garthlands, Reigate Heath, Surrey ordered his headstone inscription: "New College Oxford, M.B. Killed By Shellfire". Probate records show his residence as Garthlands, Reigate Heath, Surrey and he left £4282.19s.5d to his father. Brother, Captain Roger Eykyn Thompson, HampshireYeomanry, was killed in action on 12 Apr 1918 at Ploegsteert and is commemorated on these memorials.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Malcolm Lennox, Karen Smith - Acting Director of External Relations www.haileybury.com/honour, Ann Hacke, Terry & Glenis Collins
