LIEUTENANT ARNOLD LOCKHART FLETCHER
LEINSTER REGIMENT
30TH APRIL 1917 AGE 28
BURIED: ST SEVER CEMETERY, ROUEN, FRANCE
Arnold Fletcher died on 28 April 1917. Wounded by a shell on 18 April during the defence of Wancourt, he died twelve days later in hospital in Rouen with his father, who had come from Ireland, beside him. Two days earlier his younger brother, Donald, had been killed in Salonika. He was demonstrating how to throw hand grenades when one exploded prematurely and killed him.
Although Arnold was eight years older than Donald, the brothers had always been close. They both joined the army in May 1915, Donald had only recently left school but Arnold was already a respected geologist. They both initially served with the 4th Leinster Regiment but early in 1916 Donald transferred to the 6th Battalion. He went with it to Salonika in June 1916. Arnold meanwhile transferred to the 193rd Machine Gun Company and went it to France in December 1916. The brothers died within ten days of each other and both have the same inscription which their father, George Fletcher, chose, suggesting that the brother's closeness encouraged Arnold to follow Donald into death.
Arnold and Donald were the second and fourth children of George and Henrietta Fletcher. Their eldest child, Constance, became famous in later life as the cookery writer, Constance Spry.
[There is a lot of detail about the Fletcher fsmily on this Century Ireland site.