Arthur J Gibbons
Rank: Private
Lifetime: 18??-1918
Private Arthur Gibbons has been identified through two obituaries contained in The Surrey Comet dated 14 & 21 September 1918. Unfortunately, the reports do not agree on the identity of the regiment in which he served. Whilst the earlier one states that he was serving in the “A.S.C., M.T.” , the later one gives his regiment as “Marine Artillery, attached to No 5 Howitzer Gun.” Presumably, the later report corrected the earlier erroneous one or possibly Private Gibbons transferred from the ASC to the Artillery.
Both reports agree that he was killed in France on 31 August 1918 from wounds whilst acting as a dispatch rider.
His connection with Hampton Wick is apparently via his wife who at the time of his death had been living in apartments belonging to Mrs Cooper at 31 Park Road, Hampton Wick for two years.
Private Gibbons had been born in Woking where by August 1918 his parents were living at the Lodge of the Beechcroft Military Hospital.
In 1917 he had been presented with the Medaille Militaire by the French Government and his obituary adds that his commanding officer when he had been home on leave had presented him with a watch “for successfully carrying out his duties as despatch rider”.