BORN HESSLE 1895. GRANDSON OF GEORGE & ANNE BLAGG & ELDEST SON OF ELIZABETH BLAGG (1874-1948), OF 6 ITLINGS LANE, HESSLE, HULL (1911 CENSUS ADDRESS). HE HAD BROTHERS , STANLEY, FRANK AND FRED AND SISTERS, CLARICE, EVERLINE AND MIRRIAM. HE LIVED IN HULL. ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS. SERVED WITH THE 12TH EAST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (HULL SPORTSMAN BATTALION). KILLED AT OPPY WOOD, ON 03/05/1917, AGED 21. HIS NAME IS RECORDED ON THE HESSLE ROLL OF HONOUR, ALL SAINTS PARISH CHURCH. HIS BROTHER, STANLEY BLAGG, WAS ANOTHER HULL PAL KILLED ON 29/09/1918, AGED 19.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE ARTHUR BLAGG 12/1470. Born in July 1895, Arthur was the eldest of three sons to Elizabeth Blagg. They lived with Arthur’s Grandad at Elma House, 6 Itlings Lane, Hessle and there is no record of his father. The 1911 Census finds him working for a mineral water manufacturer. When war came he queued outside City Hall joining the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, 3rd Hull Pals. No war record exists sadly, though this is not unusual as the building housing them was damaged during The Blitz and what weren’t destroyed by fire are very often water damaged from the efforts to save them; but his war must have followed the same path as all the Originals, training until December 1915 when they left Devonport for Port Said, Egypt then serving there until February 29th 1916 when they left Alexandria on a troop ship bound for Marseilles, docking there on March 8th and taking the train north to Armentieres and the trenches of the Western Front. He will have fought at Serre, on the Somme that November and made it through that hell of mud and blood only to fall at the next hurdle, the mass of tree stumps, barbed wire and machine gun positions defending the German lines at Oppy Wood. Arthur Blagg was killed in action on 3rd May 1917 and his body was never recovered. He is commemorated on the Arras Memorial to those who lost their lives in that sector who have no known grave. He was 21 years old.
