BORN HULL 1881. YOUNGEST SON OF CAPTAIN, ROBERT THOMAS JONES (1852-1908) & MARY ANN RYALL (1854-1927), OF 54 SUNNY BANK, HULL. HE WAS EDUCATED AT HULL GRAMMAR SCHOOL. UNMARRIED. PRIOR TO WAR HE WORKED AS A CLERK AT TRINITY HOUSE AND WORKED FOR UNION ASSURANCE SOCIETY IN HULL.
HE ENLISTED IN AUGUST 1914. TOOK PART IN THE BATTLE AT NEUVE CHAPELLE, WOUNDED AND INVALIDED HOME AFTERWARDS. SENT TO EGYPT AND THEN FRANCE. AFTER THE SOMME CAMPAIGN HE WAS COMMISSIONED IN MAY 1917. SERVED AS SECOND LIEUTENANT, “B” COMPANY, 10TH EAST YORKSHIRE REIMENT. DIED OF WOUNDS, ON 01/07/1917, AGED 36. BURIED AT DUISANS CEMETERY, ETRUN, FRANCE.
HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL, ON THE 3RD JULY 1917.
HE IS LISTED ON THE HULL GRAMMAR SCHOOL ROLL OF HONOUR.
HIS NAME WAS RECORDED ON THE WAR MEMORIAL AT ST THOMAS CHURCH, CAMPBELL STREET, WHICH WAS DESTROYED IN AN AIR RAID DURING WW2.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. LIEUTENANT ARTHUR GODMAN JONES. Born in 1881, Arthur was the youngest of three children to Robert and Mary Jones of 54 Sunnybank, Hull. A Clerk before the war he was commissioned into the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Commercials’, Hull Pals. Arthur was seriously injured during the Battle of Arras and died of wounds on 1st July 1917. He was buried at Duisans British Cemetery in Etrun, slightly older than the comparative youth around him at 36. The 10th started life as a Middle Class battalion, being originally the place for professionals such as clerks to fight alongside men of their own social standing. As the war laid waste to the original Pals, the character of the battalion changed, with men being drafted in from whatever regiment had available manpower, much to the resentment of some of the older hands. Hard to imagine a mini-Class War going on amid all the slaughter, with something as petty as social standing being any sort of issue amid the mud, blood and guns; but it was. I wonder if Arthur was the sort. We’ll never know of course, but what we do know is that prior to 1914 it was unlikely that he held anything more deadly than a fountain pen, and yet three short years later he died miles away from home, a Lieutenant in the British Army.
Arthur Godman Jones worked for the Union Assurance Society Ltd. in Hull. He entered the company’s service on 01 March 1914 as an inspector and volunteered on 23 August 1914, joining the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was initially sent to Whitley Bay for training and in October 1914 he transferred to the Army Cyclist Corps and was sent to Hinsley Park Hampshire for further training. He left with the 8th division for France on 02 November 1914 and was promoted to Lance Corporal on 29 December 1914. He was invalided home on 09 May 1915 to Didsbury Hospital Manchester for an operation on a hernia caused by an accident. He returned to France in December 1915, was on the Greek island of Lemnos by February 1916 and returned to France in August 1916. In February 1917 he was a cadet at Training College Alston Hall Holbeton near Plymouth and on 29 April 1917 was appointed 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion East Yorks. On 01 June 1917 he was sent to France again where he died from wounds received on the Western Front. At the time of his death he was serving as a 2nd Lieutenant in the East Yorkshire Regiment B Company 10th Battalion. He was 36.
Anna Stone
