Arthur William Joseph Searle was born on Friday, 7th June 1895 in Weybridge, Surrey and baptised at St James’ Church just over two months later on Sunday, 18th August. He was the second son of Albert Thomas Searle and Emily Dormer who had four children together; Albert Ernest, Arthur William Joseph, Frederick Percy and an unnamed daughter who sadly died at birth in 1890.

Arthur’s brothers both served with the Royal Navy and saw active service in the War. Albert enlisted in 1915 before transferring to the Royal Airforce Reserve in 1918 from which he was demobilised a year later. Frederick joined in 1914 before the outbreak of war and served until 1927. Their father Albert had also been a regular soldier serving with the 2nd Battalion Essex regiment most notably during the Nile Expedition which was organised for the relief General Gordon at Khartoum in 1884-5.  

Arthur’s mother Emily died suddenly in 1902 when he was only six years old and the family were living on Cemetery Hill in Hemel Hempstead where his father Albert worked as a drainage inspector with the local corporation. When Arthur left school in 1908, he was the recipient of a silver watch presented to him by Alderman William Randall, an ex-Mayor of Hemel Hempstead. The award was in recognition of eight years unbroken attendance at school without ever having been late, a quite remarkable achievement and perhaps an indication of Arthur’s character.

By 1911 the family had moved to 110 Cotterells and fifteen-year-old Arthur was working as a printer in Apsley Mills with John Dickinson and Co. Limited. However, it appears from reports that young Arthur left his job and joined the Colours later in 1911 when he enlisted with the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). He would have been sixteen-years-old and too young to enlist, but it was not unknown for underage recruits to be accepted by regiments before and during the Great War.

He went to Malta and was part of the garrison there until the outbreak of war when his Battery returned to England. Arthur was sent to France with the 176th Siege Battery RGA, one of the newly formed units, on the 25th September 1916. Siege Batteries were equipped with the 30-cwt version of the 6-inch Howitzer which fired a 100-pound (weight) shell to a maximum range of 6,000 yards. A siege battery normally operated with three others under the command of a Siege Brigade and each battery was made up of five officers and one hundred and seventy-seven other ranks. It would have a range of draught horses, carts and wagons and it was most often employed in destroying or neutralising the enemy artillery, as well as putting destructive fire down on strongpoints, dumps, stores, roads and railways behind enemy lines.

Within a few days of disembarking in France Arthur was with his comrades in a forward section of the line near Messines laying down a barrage on enemy positions. This became an almost daily routine for the next eight months with the routine only varied by the level of intensity of the bombardments.

Leading up to June 1917 the barrages increased daily as the allies prepared for the attack on the Messines Ridge all of which culminated on the 7th June when battle commenced. On that day a series of large British mines, containing a total of over 455 tons of ammonal explosive, was detonated beneath German lines on the Messines-Wytschaete ridge. The explosions created 19 large craters, killed about 10,000 German soldiers, and were heard as far away as London and Dublin. 

While determining the power of explosions is difficult, this was probably the largest planned explosion in history until the 1945 Trinity atomic weapon test, and the largest non-nuclear planned explosion until the 1947 British Heligoland detonation. The Messines mines detonation killed more people than any other non-nuclear man-made explosion in history.

Arthur celebrated his twenty-second birthday the day the Battle of Messines commenced and spent the day engaged in almost non-stop shelling of the enemy positions, beginning at 3.10am and continuing until 10.45pm. At some point during the day he was severely wounded in the abdomen and immediately taken down the line to a Casualty Clearing Station. From there he was evacuated to the nearest base hospital, the New Zealand No. 1 Stationary Hospital at Hazebrouck, 18 miles (30kms) to the east.

Arthur is Remembered with Honour in Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery, Nord, France, where he is interred in Grave I.G.6. The inscription on is headstone, requested by his father Albert, reads “SLEEP ON BELOVED SLEEP AND TAKE THY REST GOOD-NIGHT”. These words are the opening line of the hymn, ‘The Christian’s Goodnight’.

He was 22 years old when he died.

Arthur was eligible for the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.