Name
Arthur Robert Walker (MM)
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
Canadian Army
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Military Medal
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Pirton School Memorial
Biography
There were three Arthur Walkers; one died and is listed on the Village War Memorial; another served with the Bedfordshire Yeomanry, and then with the Liverpool Regiment (as detailed above) and the Arthur Robert Walker who is detailed here.
This Arthur Robert appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school.
Art Walker is Arthur Robert's son and lives in Canada, and he provided much of the following information:
Arthur Robert Walker was a ‘Pirton Lad’ born on March 4th 1887 the sixth of eight children born to James and Martha Walker (née Titmuss – the family think Titmys). They lived in one of the Wellbury Cottages, Hexton Road in the Parish of Pirton. His siblings were Maud (bapt 1875), Thomas (bapt 1877), Mary (b 1879, d 1882, aged two years ten months), Harry (b 1881), Bertram (b 1884), Katherine Mary (b 1895) and Edgar Sidney (b 1890). The census confirms that by 1911 Mary had died.
Arthur emigrated to Canada, aged twenty, leaving Liverpool on January 16th 1907 on the S.S. Lake Erie. For the first few years he worked as a farmhand east of Regina Saskatchewan, eventually becoming a shipping clerk for the Massey Harris Company in Regina. By 1911 all the other children except Katherine had left the family home.
The Parish Magazine of September 1915 records Arthur enlisting during 1915, but before August, and serving in the 3rd Canadian Infantry, returning to fight and help ‘His King and Country to defend the right’. His attestation papers confirm his date of birth, record him as a clerk and confirm that he was not married. The oath was taken in Regina Saskatchewan on January 23rd 1915, and he became Private 426433 in the 46th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry, South Saskatchewan Regiment. He was twenty-seven.
He sailed for England on the S.S. Lapland, arriving at Devonport on October 30th 1915. He was promoted to Corporal the next day and to Serjeant on July 1st 1916, when he was serving as a bombing instructor at Bramshott Camp, which was on Bramshott Chase, just south of Hindhead.
He went to France with his Battalion and the 15th Reserve Battalion on August 10th 1916, disembarking at Le Havre. One week later they were in the front line. He distinguished himself in battle, leading a night attack behind enemy lines. The Hertfordshire Express of October 14th 1916 expands on the event, using a letter he wrote to his parents on September 24th, ‘I have had the pleasure of a trip across to the German trenches, a party of us pulling off a raid one night¸ the bombing officer and myself being in charge; everything went off O.K., and the raid was quite a success. We got all kinds of praise for our work. It was quite an experience, and now it is over I am glad I had it¸ although at the time it was a bit hard on the nerves, for we had to go in under cover of a bombardment by our artillery and shells were falling all round us, but things worked very smoothly and we came through fine, bringing a prisoner back with us. I was recommended for my part in it, but I don’t expect to get anything out of it.’
Five days later, he wrote again ‘I heard about Tom Abbiss (another Pirton man) being wounded. I saw him and was speaking to him the day before he went out on a raiding party (the same night that I was), and he was unfortunate enough to get wounded. I think I told you that I had been recommended for my part in the raid, and I was much surprised yesterday to learn that I have been awarded the Military Medal. I have received all kinds of congratulations, from the General down.’ He had been awarded the Military Medal for ‘the gallant part he played in a bombing raid on the Somme.’
On April 9th 1917, for his actions on the battlefield, he was appointed to the Commission Rank of Lieutenant and, at around the same time, he was fighting at Vimy Ridge in France - one of 30,000 Canadians who had arrived on the April 8th. In a letter to his parents dated April 15th 1917, he wrote ‘I don't suppose the censor will object to me mentioning where we are now, for it was in all the papers that Vimy Ridge was captured by the Canadians, and I can tell you that it was a great satisfaction for us to get 'him' off and look down the other side, for we had to take to take a lot of dirt from the Hun up there and we had a lot to pay back.’ He went on to write, ‘We licked some of the best troops that the Germans have, and, naturally, we are proud of our success. I don't think that I will be saying too much when I say that the whole Empire will be proud of the Canadian troops.’
In August 1917, he had been home on leave to Pirton but, by the 17th, was back in France and by the 19th he was back in the line and occupying the German trenches near Lens. It was there, two days later, in the battle for Vimy Ridge, that he was wounded in his right hand. He was hospitalized in Camiers, France, then moved to Western General Hospital in Fazakerley, Liverpool, ‘Here I am quite safe in Blighty and doing fine. You have no cause to worry. I have my right hand rather badly smashed up, the index finger having to be left in France.’ When discharged from hospital, he went back to Bramshott as a bombing instructor.
On December 2nd 1918 he was ordered to London for embarkation orders and, on the 5th, sailed for Canada on the S.S. Minnedosa, where he was discharged from the army on January 6th 1919.
After the war he returned to farming for a year and then, on February 1st 1920, joined the Manitoba Provincial Police. He served with them until they amalgamated with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on April 1st 1932 and he continued to serve until retiring on May 31st 1945, when he moved to British Columbia.
At some point, soon after the war, he married Belle (Isabelle) MacLennan and they had one child, Robert Barryford (Barry), before Belle sadly died from tuberculosis. Arthur remarried in 1933 to Gladys Lucille Workman and they had three children: Patricia Carine, James Arthur (Art) and Elizabeth Margaret Rose (Margaret). He died in Victoria B.C. on October 8th 1969.
Note: Four men with a Pirton connection were to be awarded a medal. Military Medals were awarded to Lieutenant Arthur Robert Walker, born in Pirton but who had been living in Canada, Sidney Cox, baptised in Pirton, and Charles Furr, born in Pirton, and a Distinguished Conduct Medal to Henry George Chamberlain, born in Pirton and who was killed in the war.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission, Art Walker (son)
