BORN HULL 1894. ORIGINAL HULL PAL. SON OF ROBERT & THE LATE EMILY TURNER. LISTED ON CLIFTON STREET, SCHOOL ROLL OF HONOUR. HE IS ALSO COMMEMORATED ON THE WITHERNSEA WW1 MEMORIAL.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. CPL. ARTHUR TURNER 10/950. Born in 1894, Arthur was the second of four children and eldest son of Robert and Emily Turner of 11 Lambert Street, Hull. He had followed his father into the Furniture business and was an Assistant Dealer before the war, but King and Country called and off he went. Arthur enlisted in the heady days of September 1914 to join the great adventure before it was too late. He joined the fledgling 10th Battalion in training at various camps in Hornsea, Beverley and Ripon before shipping to Egypt in December 1915 to help protect the Suez Canal from the Turks. They landed in France March 1916 to quite a different war in conditions almost the polar opposite of those sun-baked stretches of sand and slowly the realisation dawned that this was no Boy’s Own comic. Arthur was a veteran of the Somme, Oppy Wood and the Spring Offensive, campaigns that had taken the lives of so many of his contemporaries from the early days. He was killed in action on 15th August 1918, just three short months from safety, as his unit was caught on open ground by hostile machine gun fire and any dreams of returning home were snuffed out. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial to the missing; he was 24 years old. His parents moved to “Ashburton”, Hull Road, Withernsea. His death was reported in the Hull Daily Mail, on 18th August, 1919.
