Arthur Frederick Collis was born in July 1891 in Well near Long Sutton in Hampshire. He was the second child and only son of Fred and Annie Collis, of Jonathan Kiln Cottages, Crondall, Hampshire. Arthur had four sisters; Frances who was two years older and three younger girls; Elsie, Violet and the youngest, Annie.

By the age of 19 in 1911, Arthur was living with his family in Crondall, a small village near Farnham in Hampshire, and like his father Fred, worked as a Waggoner on a nearby farm. A Farm Waggoner looked after the horses under his control and drove them in accordance with whatever work had to be undertaken such as ploughing, reaping and harrowing. Otherwise he drove a horse-drawn heavy four-wheeled wagon, conveying produce and goods to market. It was hard and heavy manual labour.

In Hampshire in 1911 Arthur would have earned an average of approximately 15s per week which included a bonus at harvest time. Minimum wages and hours of work for agricultural labourers were not standardised until 1918 and before that time it was usual for farm employees to work 10-hour days 6 days per week. Arthur would have worked shorter hours during winter, but his weekly wage would have been lower as a result.

Arthur enlisted in The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment attesting on 10th September 1914. The Regiment was the oldest English line Infantry Regiment and the second only in ‘order of precedence’ in the British Army after the Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment). It was first raised in 1661 as The Earl of Peterborough’s Regiment of Foot, by Henry Mordaunt 2nd Earl of Peterborough.

The 2nd Battalion was in South Africa when war broke out and returned to Britain. It embarked for Belgium aboard the SS Turcoman on the 6th October 1914 and landed at Zeebrugge at dawn on the following day. It formed part of the 22nd Infantry Brigade in the 7th Division and saw action at the First Battle of Ypres. The regiment suffered significant casualties in the battle and it took until early 1915 before it recovered to full strength.

Arthur disembarked in France a month after his enlistment and joined the 2nd Battalion at Merris about 20kms west of Armentières on 11th November 1914. He would spend the next two and a half months either in the trenches or at billets behind the lines working on support and communications trenches.

The 2nd Battalion of the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment took part in the unofficial truce at Christmas 1914. The Battalion was in the line around La Boutillerie, just north of Fromelles and a few miles south of the Belgian border. On the 18th December two companies of the battalion had supported the 2nd Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment in a disastrous attack on the German lines, the Queen’s losing 97 officers and men, either killed, wounded, missing or taken prisoner. The dead and wounded lay scattered in front of the enemy lines overnight.

A first truce occurred at daybreak on 19th December 1914, when the Germans opposite beckoned the 2nd Battalion out to collect its wounded and bury its dead. Several officers, the Medical Officer and around 30 men went out to meet 60 Germans in No Man’s Land. The rival officers talked as the burial parties got to work, the Germans assisting in burying many of the British dead, many of whom lay close to their front line.

They Germans did not, however, play entirely fair: two British officers and seven stretcher bearers were enticed into the enemies trenches and taken prisoner. This truce was captured in photographs by 2nd Lieutenant J B Coates, who, though only aged 17, found himself commanding a company.

The 2nd Queen’s war diaries recorded that by late January 1915. the battalion was at La Toulette approximately 6kms south west of Armentières and from the 29th January the unit was subject to constant German sniping suffering daily casualties as a result.

On 2nd February 1915 the casualty list read; “Killed 1, Wounded 2, Hospital 2”. Arthur was the soldier who was killed.

The only record of Arthur living in Hemel Hempstead appeared in the Hemel Gazette on the 12th July 1919, when a ‘Roll of Honour’ was published listing his address as 38 Herbert Street. This was in fact his Aunt Selina Collis’ address at the time and she appears to be his only connection to the town.

Selina was the younger of his father’s two sisters and she married John Millman at St Paul’s Church in Hemel Hempstead on Christmas Day 1901. John Millman was an Iron Moulder and had come to work in either Boxmoor Iron Works or Joseph Cranstone’s Hemel Hempstead Engineering Company.

They initially lived at 16 Chapel Street in Hemel with Selina’s children from a previous marriage and by 1919 John and Selina had moved to 38 Herbert Street. They remained in Hemel Hempstead until their deaths in 1936 and 1944 respectively. It was presumably at Selina’s request that Arthur was commemorated on the Town War Memorial.

Arthur Collis is Remembered with Honour at Sailly-Sur-La-Lys Churchyard, Nord Pas-de-Calais where he was interred in Plot: C.3.

Arthur was 23 years old when he died.

He was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.