Arthur Reginald Vellacott Thorne was born at the start of 1899 in Bridgwater, Somerset. One of six children, his parents were Sidney and Bessie Thorne. Sidney was a butcher and, by the time of the 1901 census, the family had moved to Chichester, West Sussex, where he had found employment in a sausage factory.

The Thornes’ time on the south coast was not to last long: they had moved to Timberscombe, back in Somerset, by the time Sidney and Bessie’s youngest child, daughter Ivy, was born in March 1908. Tragically their happiness was not to last for long: Sidney passed away in October that year, aged just 35 years old.

With six children under the age of 12 to raise, times would have proved tough for Bessie. Her oldest child – Arthur’s older brother, Sidney – went to live with his paternal uncle’s family in Taunton, and began learning the butchering trade. Bessie took on the role of caretaker at Timberscombe School where her five younger children were being taught.

Being a butcher was not Sidney’s chosen career path. When he turned 17, in March 1914, he enlisted in the Coldstream Guards, lying about his age to do so. Six months later he was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal and attached to the 3rd Battalion. With war having been declared in Europe, he soon found himself on the Front Line, fighting in the First Battle of Ypres.

Over the next couple of years, Lance Corporal Thorne remained on the Western Front. He was killed in fighting on 15th September 1916: he was just 19 years of age. Sidney’s body was never identified: he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial in Picardie.

Arthur’s trail had gone cold at this point, but when he turned 18 years old, his brother having passed just months before, he too was called up. Assigned as a Private in the 35th Training Reserve Battalion, he was sent to Bovington Army Camp in Dorset for his induction. While there, in the cramped conditions of the military barracks, he fell ill. He was admitted to the Salisbury and District Isolation Hospital, which treated infectious diseases, and this was to be where he passed away. Private Thorne was just 18 years of age, and Bessie had lost her two oldest boys.

While Sidney’s remains were never recovered, Arthur Reginald Vellacott Thorne was brought back to Somerset to be laid to rest. He was buried in the peaceful graveyard of St Petrock’s Church in Timberscombe, not far from his father.

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Bessie was to our live four of her children. Her youngest two sons, Edwin and Cecil, were to die too young. Cecil passed away in Timberscombe in May 1922, when he was just 16. Edwin died in November 1929, at the age of 26 years old.

Bessie lived on until 1958, passing away in Minehead when she was 84 years of age.

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