Arthur John French was born on 3rd September 1889 in the Somerset village of Merriott. He was the youngest of three children to John and Annie French. John was a miller and baker in the village, and Arthur’s older brother Edward helped his father with the business. Arthur, however, followed a different path and, with Annie passing away in 1903, he had moved to London for work.

The 1911 census recorded Arthur boarding with his maternal aunt and uncle, who were both schoolteachers. He had found employment as a clerk in the head office of the National Telephone Company and shared the large terraced house with the couple, their son Alfred and their servant, Esther.

When war was declared, Arthur was in the first wave of those enlisting. He joined the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry and, as a Private, was assigned to the 2nd/4th Battalion. Initially sent to Northampton for training, his troop soon came south again and, by April 1915, was based just outside Chelmsford, Essex.

Tightly-packed barracks, housing men from across the country soon became hotbeds for illness and disease, and Private French was not to be immune. He contracted meningitis, and was admitted to the 3rd London General Hospital in Wandsworth for treatment. Sadly he was to succumb to the condition, and he breathed his last on 16th April 1915, at the age of just 25 years old.

Arthur John French’s body was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of All Saints’ Church in his home village, Merriott.

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