Thiepval Memorial
Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-
Arthur Taylor was born 1894 at Seaham, County Durham, the youngest son and one of 5 children, 4 sons and a daughter born to Thomas Weedle Taylor, a coal trimmer at the docks, born December 24th 1854 also of Seaham and his wife, whom he married in in the district of Sunderland, Jane Hendry of Southwick, County Durham born in 1858. Arthur trained as an apprentice blacksmith at the age of 16 for a general engineering firm, living with the family at 7, Alexandrina Street, Seaham Harbour. He married Emily Annie Graham, October 20th 1915, at Seaham Harbour.
Arthur enlisted aged 21, at Seaham, December 8th 1915 and was assigned as Private 32101 to the 4th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, giving his occupation as a cartman living at Burnside, Dalton le Dale, County Durham. The Battalion was an extra reserve serving at home at Seaham Harbour as part of the Tyne Garrison. Mobilised he was transferred to the 10th Battalion, August 16th 1916, departing via Folkstone to Boulogne, France as part of the British Expeditionary Force, August 17th 1916. He joined his unit in the field August 24th 1916 and was killed 23 days after his arrival in the trenches during the Battle of Delville Wood at Longueval, on the Somme.
Private 32101 Arthur Taylor’s sacrifice is recorded on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, Thiepval France, bay 14A and 15C, one of the 72,294 names of servicemen from the United Kingdom and South Africa who died in the sector between 1915 and 1918 and have no known grave. He was 22 years old.
His pay book was found intact but did not contain a will. His widow Emily Annie as his beneficiary received all monies due to him, a pension of 13 shillings and 9 pence as of April 9th 1917 and his awards of the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
Emily Annie remarried in the district of Easington in 1920 to ex serviceman Frederick W. Temple who had served as Private 1255 18th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, in Egypt and France, recipient of the 1915 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal born at Sedgefield, November 3rd 1896 and with whom she had three children, Norman born 1922, Joyce 1925 and Frederick in 1928.
The death of Arthur’s mother preceded his own, his father died in 1939, Emily Annie Temple nee Taylor/Graham and her husband Frederick W. Temple from records I can find appear to have died together January 3rd 1975 at Seaham, County Durham.
Arthur’s elder brother Ernest Taylor born in 1891 also served during the Great War. Enlisting in Seaham he was assigned as Private 685 to the Durham Light Infantry. He landed in France at Le Havre, June 17th 1916 as part of the 22nd Battalion attached to the 19th (Western) Division until becoming a Pioneer Battalion and transferred to the 8th Division, July 2nd 1916, on the second day of the Battle of the Somme and fought on the Somme during 1916, during the Arras Offensive, at Messines and the Third Battle of Ypres in Belgium in 1917. In the spring of 1918 Private 685 Ernest Taylor was killed in action May 27th, he was 27 years old and single. His sacrifice is recorded on Soissons Memorial, Aisne, France as one of almost 4,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom Forces who died during the Battles of the Aisne and the Marne in 1918 and who have no known grave. Ernest is remembered at Seaham on the Bottle Works memorial S117.08
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
Arthur Taylor is remembered at Dalton le Dale on D39.01
