Ernest
Arrowsmith
was
born
at
Moreton
in
1886,
the
third
son
of
Henry
an
agricultural
labourer
and his wife P
rudenc
e.
He
would
have
attended
Moreton
village
school
until
age
14
and
then
found
work
as
an
agricultural labourer
.
With
the
outbreak
o
f
war
1914
Ernest
enlisted
into
the
North
Staffordshire
Regiment;
i
n
Newport,
Shropshire.
After
training
he
was
posted
t
o
the
6
th
Battalion
which
served
in
France
throughout the Great W
ar
.
Whether Ernest was
a
volunteer
o
r a conscript is not known, however,
he
was aw
arded the
British
W
ar
M
eda
l
an
d
V
ictory
M
eda
l
which
indicates
that
h
e
did
no
t
see
an
y
active
service
until after 1
st
January 1
916
.
On
1
s
t
July
1916
6
th
North
Staf
fs
took
part
in
a
diversionary
attack
at
Gommecourt,
during
the infamous
First Day of the Battle of the Somme.
Between
9
th
April
and
16
th
June
1917
the
British
launched
a
n
attack
in
support
o
f
a
larger
French
offensive:
the
battles
of
the
Chemin
de
s
Dames
and
the
hills
o
f
Champagne.
The
opening
Battl
e
o
f
Vi
my
an
d
the
First
Battle
o
f
the
Scarpe
are
very
encouraging,
bu
t
once
aga
in
the
offensive,
often
known
a
s
the
Battle
o
f
Arras,
bogs
down
into
an
attritional
slog.
Final attempts
t
o outflank the German lines
a
t Bullecourt prove terribly costly
.
The
6th
Battalion,
North
Staffords
hire
Regiment,
was
part
of
the
larger
British
force
involv
ed
in
the Arras
offensive.
They
would
have
been
involved
in
the
initial
attacks,
holding
positions,
and
contributing
to
the
overall
efforts
to
advance
against
the
German
lines.
On
24
th
May
1917
Ernest
Arrowsmith
lost
his
life
during
the
Battle
of
Arras,
he
has
no
known
grave
and
but he is commemorated on the
Arras Memorial and in his parish church at Moreton.
Ernest is the brother of Henry
Arrowsmith who died on 4
th
April 1916.
Ernest
Arrowsmith
Private – 241
822 6
t
h
North Sta
ffordshi
re Regi
ment
Ki
lled in ac
ti
on
24
th
May
1917- a
g
ed 20
Remem
ber
ed on
the
Arras M
em
o
rial
Arras
Mem
orial
The French handed over
Arras to Commonwealth forces in the spring of 1916 and the
system of tunnels upon which the town is bui
lt were used and dev
eloped in pr
eparation for
the major of
fensive planned for
April 1917.
The Commonwealth section of the F
AUBOURG D'AMIENS CEMETER
Y
was begun in
March 1916, behind the French military cemetery established earlier
. It continued to be
used by field ambulances and fighting units until November 1918.
The cemetery was
enlarged after the
Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields and from
two smaller cem
eteries in the vicinity
.
The cemetery contains over 2,650 Commonwealth burials of the First World W
ar
, 10 of
which are unidentified. The graves in the French military cemetery w
ere removed after the
war to other
burial grounds and the land they had occupied w
as used for the construction
of the
Arras Memorial and
Arras Flying Services Memorial.
The adjacent
ARRAS MEMORIAL
commemorates almost 35,000 servicemen from the
United Kingdom, South
Africa and New Zealand who died in the
Arras sector between the
spring of 1916 and 7
August 1918, the eve of the
Advance to Victory
, and have no known
grave.
The most conspicuous events of this period were the
Arras offensive of
April
-May
1917, and the German attack in the spring of 1918. Canadian and
Australian servicemen
killed in these operations are commemorated by memorials at Vimy and
Villers
Bretonneux.
A
separate memorial remembers those killed in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917.