BORN HULL 1894. SON OF HENRY WEST (1844-1911) & SARAH DOUGLAS (1855-1930), OF 6, KING’S CROSS TERRACE, BEAN STREET, HULL. SON OF A NER RAILWAY LABOURER. HE HAD TWO BROTHERS AND FOUR SISTERS. WORKED AS A BRICKLAYERS LABOURER (1911 CENSUS). EMPLOYED AT SANDERSON’S PAINT WORKS, ENGLISH STREET, HULL.
HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS. DIED AT THE SOMME, ON 04/06/1916, AGED 21. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL, ON 19/06/1916. HIS ARMY EFFECTS WERE LEFT TO HIS WIDOWED MOTHER, SARAH.
HIS BROTHER, BATTERY SERGEANT MAJOR, HERBERT HENRY WEST, RFA, WAS KILLED IN ACTION, IN 1917, AGED 31. THEY ARE COMMEMORATED TOGETHER, ON ST MATTHEWS CHURCH WW1 MEMORIAL, BOULEVARD, HULL.
Hull Pals Memorial Post: Born in December 1894, Arthur was the youngest of eight children to Henry and Sarah West of 6 Kings Cross Terrace, Bean Street, Hull. A Bricklayer’s Labourer by trade he enlisted at Hull City Hall joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Commercials’, 1st Hull Pals.
Nicknamed ‘Tich’, Arthur’s story was that of the Pals themselves- training, Egypt then the trenches of the Western Front. He was killed in action on 4th June 1916 and there’s a survivor’s account of his last moments:
“A shell fell immediately behind the trench and two men were hit. One, Tich West, who was next to me, was struck high up in the back. Lifting him, I placed him across my knee and was endeavouring to fix a field dressing when another shell blew in the parados, burying us all. Fortunately the trench had been banked up with a lot of new sandbags, so for a few minutes at any rate, some air came through the crevices, which would not have been the case if it had been made of earth alone. I was buried in a kneeling position grasping a man I then knew to be dead.”
Arthur is buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery; he was 21 years old.
The family misery didn’t end there. Arthur’s elder brother, Herbert Henry West was killed in action on 16th May 1917 serving with the Royal Field Artillery.
The 10th East Yorkshire had been kept in the trenches for another day, to cover a raid by the 94th Division. They were shelled for 70 minutes by the Germans starting at 12.30am. The Battalion History records: “The front line trenches were blown in almost beyond recognition, scarcely a fire-bay remained intact. As expected casualties came readily, but the men stood up heroically to a rain of shells to which they could not reply”. When the shelling subsided there were 30 casualties. Along with Arthur, the dead included, John Henry Monday, aged 20 and Albert Blakemore, aged 19, who all lived near Arthur in Bean Street, Hull. It is inconceivable that these three men did not know each other. They died together on the 4th June 1916 and are remembered together on St Matthews Church WW1 Memorial, Boulevard, Hull.
