Arthur Mitchell was born in 1888 at Gaddesden Row and baptised in the same year on the 25th November in the church of St John the Baptist, Great Gaddesden. His father was Joseph Mitchell, an Agricultural Labourer and his mother was Sarah Gregory. Arthur had twelve siblings of whom eleven are known. There were six girls; Annie, Alice ‘Jane’, Lillie, Elizabeth, Emma and Louisa. His five brothers were; Henry ‘Harry’, Frederick, George, James and Edward. Three of the children had died by 1911, James in 1898, Lillie in 1908 and one other child whose name, and gender are unknown.

Arthur was the sixth child and when he was born the family lived at Wood Farm which still stands today between Piccott’s End and Gaddesden Row. Indeed, in later census returns Joseph had moved his family to other farms and by 1911, when Arthur was twenty-one he had joined his father on the land and was working as a Horseman.

At the time of Arthur’s death, Joseph and Sarah were living at ‘1, Adey Fields, Hemel Hempstead,’ which was in all likelihood Adeyfield Farm which eventually disappeared with the coming of the New Town after the Second World War.

On the outbreak of war, Arthur enlisted with the Bedfordshire Regiment at Hemel Hempstead, between the 31st August and the 3rd September 1914. He then joined the 3rd Battalion Bedfordshires a ‘Reserve’ battalion whose function at the time was twofold; first it provided part of the East Coast Defence Force posted to Landguard Fort in Felixstowe; and second it trained the drafts of volunteers before they were sent to join the two Regular battalions engaged on the Western Front during 1914 and 1915.

On completion of his training Arthur went to France and disembarked on the 1st April 1915 at Le Havre. By 22nd April he was with the Battalion near Zilibeke in Belgium and he saw his first action in the trenches around Hill 60.

Arthur was possibly the first soldier from Hemel Hempstead to die chiefly as a result of German gas attacks. On the morning of the 5th May the battalion War Diary records an attack: "5 May 1915 At a little after 8 a.m. enemy attacked with asphyxiating gas laid on from two points opposite our trenches. Battn stuck to its trenches, though a few men killed by gas, & all were badly affected."

He was one of the soldiers ‘badly affected’ and he was evacuated to No. 13 General Hospital in Boulogne. It was here that, despite making some progress towards a recovery, that he died on 11th May 1915.

The General (Base) Hospital was part of the casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Casualty Clearing Stations. They were manned by troops of the Royal Army Medical Corps, with attached Royal Engineers and men of the Army Service Corps. In the theatre of war in France and Flanders, the British hospitals were generally located near the coast. They needed to be close to a railway line, in order for casualties to arrive (although some also came by canal barge); they also needed to be near a port where men could be evacuated for longer-term treatment in Britain.

The "asphyxiating gas" was probably chlorine as a symptom of poisoning by chlorine gas is bronchitis and this was the cause of Arthur’s death. His father received a letter from a Sister Holmes which described his passing.

A touching piece, published on the same day, reported his death and described the efforts of his fiancée to see him in hospital.

Arthur is Remembered with Honour at the Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France where he is interred in Plot: VIII. C. 20. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his mother Sarah, reads: “OUR LOVED ONE GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN”

He is also commemorated on the Great Gaddesden War Memorial.

Arthur was 27 years old when he died.

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