MAJOR ARTHUR TOWARD WATSON
KING'S ROYAL RIFLE CORPS
5TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 47
BURIED: LA CLYTTE MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
There's a black marble plaque in St Andrew's Church, Bishopthorpe, Selby, Yorkshire, which tells the story of Major Watson's war:
To the beloved memory of
Arthur Toward Watson
Major 21st Battn. Kings Royal
Rifles of Bishopthorpe Garth
And of Burnopfield in the
County of Durham
He offered his services to his
Country as a soldier in the Great
War. He led a company in the
Battle of the Somme, Sept 15th
1916, when he was severely wounded
And in the Battle of Messines
On June 7th 1917. On Sunday Aug 5th
1917 when second in command of
His Battn. he was killed in action
In the fighting for Passchendaele
Ridge in his 48th year
Arthur Watson was a wealthy coal owner. He had always wanted a career in the army but a non-military gun-shot injury had deprived him of the sight in his right eye, over which he wore a patch. Although this had previously prevented him joining the army it didn't stop him receiving a temporary commission in September 1914. Initially he served with the Remount Department but in October 1915 he managed to get a commission in a service battalion of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps.
Severely wounded on the Somme, he returned to the front in April 1917. At the beginning of August he received a well-deserved home posting. On Sunday 5 August he went up the line for the last time to say good-bye to his old battalion and was very badly wounded when a shell exploded beside him. He died of his wounds the same day.
His inscription is a puzzle. The quotation marks are definitely there and yet it doesn't appear to be a quotation. In addition, the rather stilted syntax would suggest that they weren't Watson's own words. The inscription implies that Watson, by being a servant of God, was a friend to man and this interpretation is born out by the inscription on the reredos, also in St Andrew's Church Bishopthorpe:
To the Glory of God & in loving & grateful memory of Arthur Toward Watson whose days on earth were spent in the endeavour to
Make the lives of others happy & who for his King and Country willingly laid down his life in battle.
This reredos and panelling were placed in this chancel
By Virginia his widow, John his son & Diana his daughter MCMXIX