Good Old Somersets

The Somersets

To follow this post you probably need to have read the previous one, which describes the time spent by the 8th Battalion CEF with the Somersets in Ploegsteert in early 1915. Their War Diary and one of their men, sniper Frank Iriam, recorded the attempts they made to rescue Arthur when he was hit by a sniper between the lines. This gave me an opportunity to find out more about an NCO as they were rarely named in the War Diary, the main source for my twitter account. Link to the blog past is here

My attempts to find out more about local man Arthur Jenkins, 1^st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry were helped by the local paper, who kindly printed a summary the information I had gathered so far. Link here to the Bath Chronicle story.

This was gained mostly via the experts on the excellent Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group – anyone visiting from there may recognise some of the sources used – they, as well as the person who posted them can be found here:

After the newspaper article I was directed to the book – “In the Company of Heroes” by William Banning, which covers the First World War service of men in the villages surrounding Bath, many of them in the Somerset coalfield area. In the book were 2 letters written by Arthur during his time at the Front and also the details of the war memorials where he is remembered: The Ploegsteert Memorial and in the village of Hemington. The memorials and letters can be found below, in the second letter he mentions a Thomas Wilcox, I have been told that his nephew is still living in the same village.