| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Arthur Taylor was born in Beverley on 14 Mar 1887. Arthur was the son of Edith Roberts (1869-1931) (nee Bradley) who in 1892 married John Nevison Taylor (1850-1927). John Nevison Taylor had been married to Ann Elizabeth Roden, with whom he had four children but she had died in 1888. John had been a bricklayer and then a rat catcher who in 1902 became landlord of the Travellers’ Rest pub on Beckside. Arthur, who took on his stepfather’s surname, had been brought up on West Terrace, off Potter Hill, prior to living in the pub.
Nothing is known of his upbringing but on 10 Oct 1904 Arthur joined the regular army as a private in the 1st Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. In May 1907 he had attended the Royal Army Medical Corps School of Instruction at Colchester but left the army on 7 Oct 1907, joining the RAMC Territorial Reserve who would be mobilised in the event of war. He returned to Beverley and worked as a barman and later at the local shipyard as a plater’s helper. According to the 1911 census he was lodging with the Addy family at 87 Flemingate.
Britain entered WWI on 4 Aug 1914 and a day later Arthur was mobilised. He joined the RAMC as a private in 8th Company and arrived in France on 16 Aug 1914. He was thrust into battle on 23 Aug 1914 when the BEF clashed with the advancing German army at Mons in Belgium. Arthur was involved in the fighting and the subsequent retreat for four days before being wounded. According to his diary entries reported in the local press Arthur suffered a “strained back and heart” caused by carrying a wounded soldier from the Sutherland Highlanders from the fighting line at Mons. He had narrowly avoided gunshot wounds himself: one bullet went through the tip of his cap and another through his sleeve. Arthur recorded that, “I must have carried him two miles though it seemed like ten.”
Arthur was evacuated to Le Havre by hospital train and placed in the casino which had been converted into a hospital. He was then moved by car and ship to Netley hospital near Southampton. In early Sep 1914 he arrived back in Beverley and was lauded as Beverley’s first WWI casualty. Hoping to return to the front he actually spent the rest of the war with the RAMC in the UK. In Apr 1918 he was switched to the Royal Engineers Inland Water and Docks Section Sanitary Corps. He was discharged from the army on 14 Jan 1919. He was awarded the 1914 Star and the War and Victory medals.
After the war Arthur returned to the Beverley shipyard and was still working there in 1939. He was married to Margaret Walker in 1931. They had two children: Clive in 1933 and Shirley in 1935.The family lived on Norwood. Arthur died in Beverley in 1965.
Includes information taken from census, military records, newspapers |