PIONEER ARTHUR CHARLES HUGHES
LABOUR CORPS
29TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 48
BURIED: LA CLYTTE MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
I picked this inscription to show the wider community of mourning that can be associated with a single war death. I thought it would be easy to show who Percy, Herbert, Arthur, Ciss and Amy were, but it turned out to be very difficult. The War Graves Commission only had Hughes' initials, AC, which always makes life difficult, but eventually he turned up in the 1911 census as Charles Hughes, living with his children - Percy, Herbert, Arthur, Lydia (Ciss?) and Amy - as well as with Alice Hughes, his wife of nineteen years.
Hughes attested in September 1915. When asked for the name of his next-of-kin he gave it as Alice M Wilson, describing the relationship as "Friend (as wife)". They had obviously never married. Alice's name is not listed on the headstone. Was she dead? The uncertainty of her legal name makes her very difficult to trace.