492060 (5048) PRIVATE ARTHUR JOHN COBB
1ST/13TH (KENSINGTON) BATTALION
LONDON REGIMENT T.F.
DIED OF WOUNDS
18TH FEBRUARY 1917
AGE 26 YEARS
Arthur had been born in the village of Bramfield on the 11th October 1890, the ninth of fourteen children born to George a Bricklayer’s Labourer and Louisa, (née Sillett). In November 1897, the family had moved to nearby Wissett with six of the Cobb children attending the village school. Shortly after this move the family must have fallen on hard times as the twelfth child, Eva, was born in the Blything Union Workhouse at Bulcamp. By the time of the 1911 Census their problems must have been behind them as Arthur had now left school and had found work as a groom whilst living with the younger members of the family in London Road, Halesworth. On the 26th February 1914 the head of the family, George, passed away, it was around this time that Arthur left the town, possibly in search of better paid work. He moved to Lee in South London where one of his older sisters, Julie, had set up home with her husband Charles Crawley and their two young children. Whilst living with them he found employment as a Mechanic while still managing to keep in contact with his Suffolk sweetheart, Gertie Flossie Winter, whom he returned to marry in her local parish church at Southwold late in 1915. After the wedding they both travelled to Lee to set up home close to Arthur’s sister.
Within four to five months of their marriage Arthur had been conscripted to serve in the army, becoming 5048 a Private Soldier in the 1/13th (Kensington Battalion) the London Regiment T.F. This pre-war Territorial Battalion had in company with the Halesworth Territorials of the 4th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment being one of the first complete part-time formations to cross to France, landing on the 4th November 1914. Arthur, after completing 6 months of training and now with a new Regimental number of 492060, had travelled to France joining the Kensington’s on the 18th December 1916. Little did he know that exactly to the day he would lose his life just three months later.
Prior to Arthur joining the Battalion they had been heavily involved in the Battle of the Somme. The first day of the battle has since gone down in British military history as the most costly single day for the most lives lost, being in excess of nineteen thousand with the 1/13th Kensington’s alone losing three hundred and twenty-six men. Leading up to Arthur’s death the Battalion War Diary for the second half of February 1917 shows that on the fourteenth day of the month they had relieved the 4th Bn Royal Fusiliers from their front line positions in the Neuve Chapelle sector. Three days later on the seventh a trench raid was carried out on the German front line by a party of four Officers and one hundred and forty Other Ranks, drawn from right across the Battalion. Leaving their trenches at 7.15am just as dawn was breaking and under a friendly artillery barrage onto the German rear area they went across No Man’s Land and into the enemy’s lightly held front-line trenches in minutes. They were then able to penetrate a section of the German support line where a number of dugouts were cleared by the use of grenades, at 7.30am the withdrawal was ordered, taking five prisoners from the 13th Bavarian Regiment and leaving an estimated forty of the enemy dead. The Kensingtons casualties amounted to four soldiers killed and some thirty-four wounded including one Officer, mostly caused by the German counter-artillery fire as they withdrew, it is likely that Arthur would have been one of these with his comrades managing to carry him back to their own line. Here he would have been attended to by the Battalion doctor in their Regimental Aid Post before being transported back to a Field Ambulance where sadly he passed away the following day. Arthur was finally laid to rest in the Merville Communal Cemetery, France.
Unlike a number of the town’s war dead, Gertie heard of Arthur’s demise within five days of his death. After a short period she had then returned to her mother’s home in Church Street, Southwold where on the 16th August 1917 she was granted a weekly pension of 13s 9d (75p). This was followed by a War Gratuity payment in 1919 totalling £4 18s 10d (£4.94p).
She would also have received Arthur’s medal awards of the British War and Victory medals with a memorial plaque and scroll.
Information regarding the location of these awards is not known, although a note on the Medal Index Card shows the medal pair were returned unclaimed.
Another illustration of how the Great War affected so many British families is the case of Arthur’s older sister Julia who had not only the sadness of losing her younger brother Arthur in 1917, but then suffered the loss of her husband Charlie whilst he was serving with the Army Service Corps on the Continent, when he died of influenza (Spanish Flu) on the 13th December 1918.
