CAPTAIN ARNOLD MCLINTOCK
DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S WEST RIDING REGIMENT
3RD SEPTEMBER 1916 AGE 31
BURIED: MILL ROAD CEMETRY, FRANCE
The 3 September 1916 was a black day for the West Riding of Yorkshire. The 49th (West Riding) Division went into action at Thiepval with very heavy casualties, the 1st/5th Battalion the Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment receiving 350 casualties out of the 450 men in the initial attack, 106 of them killed. Captain Arnold McLintock, described as Lieutenant McLintock in the 1st/5th Battalion War Diary, led A Company in an assault on the Pope's Nose. It's difficult to determine exactly what happened but it whilst there were reports that the German front line was taken the positions couldn't be held. McLintock and many of the Battalion, initially listed as missing, were not declared dead until July 1917.
Arnold McLintock was a partner in his uncle's woollen mill business, to which he had been apprenticed since the age of 15. The company manufactured cloth and ironically, due to the demand for khaki cloth, business in these mills boomed during the war years. The 1st/5th were Territorials and A Company was formed from men in the Huddersfield, Meltham area. Posted to France in April 1915, they first saw action at Aubers Ridge the following month.
Mary McLintock, Arnold's mother, chose his inscription - 'One gift he had, one royal gift he gave'. The words come from a longer passage that is sometimes found on memorial dedications but without any attribution. The gift that McLintock and so many others gave was, of course, their lives, their futures.
Ever for him life's brilliant banners wave,
Borne on the breeze of man's courageous spell;
He shall not know the weary bitterness
That haunts me still, he slumbers but too well.
One gift he had, one royal gift he gave
A gift that meant for him the summer sun,
Youth's glorious hopes; the lover's ecstasy,
Life's fair adventure scarcely yet begun.
One gift he had, one royal gift he gave
Proud to exchange it for a soldier's grave.