Arthur Cuttriss Hostler was born in Haddenham, Cambridgeshire in 1889, the son of Jonathan Cockerton Hostler and his wife Ellen Cuttriss.  In the 1891 census the family was living at Linden End, where Jonathan was recorded as a bricklayer journeyman, but by 1901, now living in the High Street, he was a builder working on his own account.

By the time of the 1911 census Arthur had left home and was a school teacher, lodging with a family in Harborne, Birmingham.

There is no surviving service record for him, but the report of his death in the Ely Standard of 14th July states that he ‘went out in January last’. Allowing for six to nine months’ training, this would mean he had probably joined up in early summer 1915.

Arthur was in the 1st/1st South Midland Field Ambulance (a mobile front line medical unit, not a vehicle). His unit was attached to the 48th (South Midland) Division and would have had special responsibility for the care of casualties of one of the Brigades in the Division.

The Ely Standard describes how he was attending the wounded on 1st July, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, in which the British army suffered its heaviest ever casualties, when he was shot through the body near the heart. He died two days later.

His grave is in the extension to the Mesnil Communal Cemetery, close to the Somme, which served the Mesnil Dressing Station, so it is likely that he had died there. He is also commemorated on our war memorial.

Rosemary Gorman