SMITH A.
Arthur Smith
Private 10232
2nd Bn., Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regt.)
Arthur Smith died on Sunday 20 September 1914, Age 33, and was commemorated on the LA FERTE-SOUS-JOUARRE MEMORIAL, Seine-et-Marne, France. He was the first person named on Sutton's War Memorial to die in the war.
He was born 18th June 1882 at New Cross, Sutton in Ashfield, to parents James and Caroline Smith (formerly Hall). James was originally born in Balderton and Caroline was from Stubton, Lincolnshire.
Arthur's father, James, died in 1889, and his mother remarried in September 1891 to James Moss, a Colliery Blacksmith. At the time of Arthur's death Mrs Caroline Moss was living at 3 Rodsfords Row, Skegby. She died a widow at Skegby in 1926.
Arthur went into the regular army, the Sherwood Foresters, served in India and had returned to England and left the army but was placed on the reserve list. Only a few months later he was recalled back into the army on the outbreak of the First World War and was then tragically killed.
His elder brother, George Smith, also served in the First World War as a Military Policeman. He was the Great Grandfather of Jean Dixon.
From ‘Soldiers who died in the Great War 1914-19 –
Part 49 The Sherwood Foresters’
ARTHUR SMITH. Born Sutton-in-Ashfield, Enlisted Mansfield (resides Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts) 2nd Bn., Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regt.). Private 10232, Killed in Action France & Flanders 20th Sept 1914.
Research by Helen Wilson, Heather Faulkes and Jean Dixon
Photograph kindly supplied by Jean Dixon
