Arthur was a Corporal in the 1st/4th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment and is the only serviceman on the Swanland War Memorial who is not a Private. He was born in Harswell, near Market Weighton, on 17 March 1896, the first child of Arthur John Hamlin (1875-1926), a groom, and Sarah Ann Fentiman (1878-1975). Five years later the family were still in Harswell and by then Arthur had a brother and sister. At the time of the 1911 Census the family had moved to Bransburton and Arthur, who by now had four siblings, had become a Grocer’s Assistant. He joined the 1/4th Territorial battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment in Hull in March 1913.
The War Diary of the Battalion records that on 17 April 1915 they sailed from Folkestone to Boulogne on RMS Invicta. The complement was 27 Offcers and 492 Other Ranks. They travelled by train and bus, as well as by marching, and on 24 April they were in trenches in the Ypres Salient. At the beginning of May, when the Battalion were still in the trenches around Ypres, Arthur Hamlin was reported as wounded but this was then changed to wounded and missing. His body was never found and his date of death is recorded as 3 May 1915. His death was reported in the Hull Daily Mail, with his Hull address as 4 Walton Street. His army effects were left to his father, Arthur.
He is one of the 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who are remembered on the Menin Gate in Ypres and who died in the Salient and have no known grave.
