Arthur Thomas Holliman was born in Boxmoor on Wednesday, 20th September 1893 and baptised at St John’s Church in the village on Wednesday, 8th November in the same year. He was the fourth of twelve children born to George Holliman and Eliza Bates two of whom died in infancy. Their surviving children were: George Ernest, Ethel May, (Constance) Connie, Arthur, Percy, Florence Annie, Herbert, Frank, Amy and Edith.

When Arthur was born the family lived in St John’s Road in Boxmoor and his father George worked as an ‘Envelope Cutter’ for John Dickinson & Co. Limited in Apsley Mills. Arthur followed his older siblings into Boxmoor JMI School which he started in 1898 and having completed two of the seven Standards, he left school in July 1906 two months before his thirteenth birthday.

He left to start work in a local greengrocer’s shop on St John’s Road of which there were at least three. Studying the list of Arthur’s classmates at Boxmoor reveals of the thirty-six boys, eight (22%) fell in the Great War. They were: William Mead, October 1915; George Henry Baldwin, July 1st, 1916 (the first day of the Somme); Harry Gamble and Gordon Hemley September 1916; William John Bisney, May 1917; Archibald Bates, Oct 1917 and Fred Harrowell, Oct 1918.

George Albert Timson also fought with the 6th Bedfordshire Regiment and he was killed on the same day and in the same battle as Arthur. The biographies of all of these men appear on this site.

Five years after leaving school, the 1911 Census recorded Arthur as a ‘Worker’ in the Paper Mills with John Dickinson and Co Limited along with his father, two of his older sisters May and Connie and his younger brother Percy.

By the time war broke out Arthur had left Dickinsons and he immediately joined the Colours, attesting at Hemel Hempstead in September 1914 and joining the 4th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment. He trained at Felixstowe initially before being drafted to the 6th Battalion Bedfordshires. The 6th was initially attached to the 9th (Scottish) Division at Aldershot whilst training, but when the 37th Division was formed in March 1915, the Battalion was moved to join them at Andover and trained on Salisbury Plain, where it was transferred into the 112th Brigade.

When he had completed his basic training, Arthur was sent to France with his unit, disembarking at Le Havre on the 30th July 1915. Having gathered its supplies, the Division concentrated around St Omer before moving forward to the front line.

The rest of the year was relatively uneventful with Arthur’s time occupied in working parties, drills and training, but all this was to change when the 6th Battalion fought in the Somme offensive beginning on July 1st, 1916. Arthur fought in the Battles of Bazentin Ridge in July, Pozières in August and Ancre in November.

He then took part in the operations at Ancre in February 1917 before fighting in the Second Battle of the Scarpe, part of the Arras offensive in April. On the first day of fighting the Bedfordshires encountered heavy shelling and counter-attacks from the enemy, but still reached its objective. This effort came at a high price however, with over 260 men killed or wounded.

The dead included Arthur who was killed on Monday, 23rd April 1917.

He is commemorated on the memorial plaque in St John’s Church in Boxmoor where he had worshipped before the war.

Arthur is Remembered with Honour on the Arras Memorial, Pas-de-Calais, France, Bay 5. 

He was 23 years old when he died.

Arthur was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.