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Lance Corporal Harold Arnott, aged 32, originally from Beverley later a resident of Bradford, was seriously wounded in the early phase of the Battle of the Somme. The Beverley Guardian of 15 Jul reported that he had been “wounded by a gunshot in the leg… and is now in hospital at Whalley in Lancashire”. Harold enlisted on 6 Aug 1915 and joined the Northumberland Fusiliers but little is known of his army career in detail. After his injury he switched to the Army Labour Corps as a Corporal and Lance-Sergeant but was later assessed as “physically unfit for further military service” and awarded the Silver Badge, he was discharged on 14 Mar 1919.
Whether it was a reoccurrence of his earlier injury or whether he had incurred a further one is not known but his discharge documents suggest that he was “sick”. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Harold was born in Beverley on 14 Aug 1883 and baptised at Beverley Minster on 8 Sep 1883. His father, Richard Arnott, originally from Lund; his mother, Harriet Arnott, was from Goodmanham. Harold was the youngest of seven children. The family home was in Wilbert Grove, then Wilbert Lane, in Beverley. Richard Arnott worked as a clerk. In 1901 Harold was a “brewery merchant’s clerk” possibly working alongside his brother James who was a “wine and spirit merchant’s clerk”. Harold later moved to Bradford and lived with his brother and his wife, Christina, also from Beverley. James and Harold both worked as a “wholesale provision merchant’s clerk”. Harold’s sister, Florence married John Henry Cuthbert in 1906 and lived in Shipley; he was the manager of a business and it is possible that they worked for him. Harold’s other brothers also did clerical work: Richard was a corn merchant’s clerk. Herbert was a solicitor’s clerk in Beverley who was sentenced to 12 months hard labour in 1909 at York Assizes for theft and embezzlement.
On 11 Nov 1917, at the parish church in Bolton, Harold married Ethel Walker, who was born in 1889, and was from Bradford. Before the war she had been a bookbinder but was now a munitions’ worker. In Mar 1920 Ethel gave birth to their only child, Marjorie. He continued to live in Bradford and died there in September 1939.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |