Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE ARTHUR ERNEST ELSTON 11/1342. Born in April 1893, Arthur was the youngest of four children to Robert and Agnes Elston of 13 Albert’s Terrace, Waterloo Street, Hull. A Labourer before the war, he enlisted at Hull City Hall on 28th December 1914 joining the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. After spending the following year training at various barracks throughout East and North Yorkshire, the Pals sailed for Alexandria, Egypt in December 1915 where they were posted to guard the Suez Canal from potential attack by the Turks. On 29th February 1916 they left Port Said for Marseilles and the trek north to the trenches of the Western Front. Arthur was a veteran of the Somme and had witnessed the battalion being decimated in front of Oppy Wood. He had survived both. What claimed Arthur’s life was not a big attack, some heroic chapter in the annals of history. He was killed in action on 16th May 1917, just another statistic of the ‘daily wastage’ of life in the trenches. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was 24 years old. Arthur’s elder brother, Robert William Elston, was killed during The Blitz, a victim of a German bombing raid on the night of 3rd June 1941.
Elston, Arthur Ernest
First name:
ARTHUR ERNEST
Military Number:
11/1342
Rank:
Private
Date Died
16/05/1917
Place died:
Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France
Age:
24