AF White





Village memories: Kingsmead, Loudwater(picture from SWOP website)

Arthur's grave in High Wycombe Cemetery



Arthur F White 1885-1918

Hello, my name is Arthur White. I’m the son of James White and Sarah Wilkes. My parents married in 1866 so I was quite a late arrival as I was born in 1885 in Flackwell Heath. It was a large family. I had three sisters and five brothers. My mother was one of the Wilkes family (sometimes spelt Wilks) who were well known in of Flackwell Heath as this were a lot of my cousins lived. One of my cousins, Vincent Wilkes, is also buried in the cemetery. His name is on the Flackwell Heath War Memorial along with several of my Wilks cousins, and my name is on the Loudwater War Memorial where we later lived.

By 1901, I was working as a 'hay tier' as was my mother Sarah. By 1911 my father had died, and we were living in Back Lane, Loudwater, and I had become an engine driver at a local saw mill. I had married in 1908 and my wife Annie Louisa, my mother, my three sisters, my brother, and also my nephew and a lodger were all living with us.

I enlisted in the Devonshire Regiment, 13th Battalion and was later transferred to the Labour Corps, service number 172481 due to my health. Raised in the summer of 1916, the 13th (Works) Battalion was allotted to the Devonshire Regiment with whom they had only the most tenuous connection – one or two invalided Devon officers served with them. Men in this battalion were unfit for front line service because of wounds or ill health but undertook arduous, occasionally dangerous, support jobs behind the lines. Within months the connection with the Devonshire Regiment was severed and the battalion was transferred to the newly formed Labour Corps.

I died on home soil on 6th November 1918 at the age of 34 just five days before the war ended. My death was probably due to the flu which no doubt also killed my brother Edward. Both I and Edward are buried in this grave at High Wycombe cemetery, grave reference 331. My funeral, and that of my brother, took place on Armistice Day 1918. Sadly, because I was the only one who was on active service, my brother is not mentioned in the newspaper article about the funeral. We were not a wealthy family so only I got to have a Commonwealth War Grave Commission headstone, my brother has nothing.

Please see Vincent Wilkes story for more details of the tragedy which befell our families.



Researched by John Gurney, Flackwell Local Area History Group

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