Pte 49045 Arthur Foster Hampson

• Age: 27
• From: Tyldesley Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• D.O.W Friday 11th October 1918
• Commemorated at: Cologne South Cem Germany
  Panel Ref: VIII.E.9

Arthur Foster Hampson was born on the 9^th February 1891 in Tyldesley, Lancashire, the son of John Hampson and his wife Sarah Ann (nee Whalley). He was baptised in St. Stephen’s, Astley, on 5th April 1891. His father was born in Wigan and his mother in Tyldesley.  They married in 1870 and had ten children, one of whom died young.  Arthur had older siblings Margaret, Catherine, Joshua, John, Thomas, Sarah Ann, and Ethel, and a younger brother Walter. 

Arthur is two months old on the 1891 census. His family, with eight children, is living at 71 Shuttle Street, Tyldesley with Shakerley. His father is an ironmonger, his sister Margaret, 19, is a cotton weaver, Catherine, 16, is a domestic servant, Joshua, 14, is a cotton spinner’s scavenger. John, 11, Thomas, 9, and Sarah Ann, 7, are at school, and Ethel is 4.  The Tyldesley area was built on coal mining and cotton mills.  Many of their neighbours are employed in collieries or mills.

In 1901 they are at the same address, with six children in the home. His father is a self-employed ironmonger, working from home. John, 21, is a grocer shopkeeper, Thomas, 19, is a painter’s apprentice, Sarah, 17, is ‘at home’, Ethel, 15, is a calico weaver in a cotton mill, Arthur is 10, and Walter 9. 

In 1911 Arthur is living with his parents, sister Ethel, and brother Walter, at 116 Commonside Street South, Tyldesley.  His father, 64, is now retired (ironmonger/employer), his mother is 62, Arthur is 20, single, employed as a house joiner (‘Earl of Ellesmere estate’ written and crossed out), Ethel is a housemaid, and Walter is a shop assistant in an ironmongery business. 

His father died in 1912, aged 66.

Arthur enlisted in Leigh and was formerly 32005, Lancashire Fusiliers. He was transferred and was serving in the 17^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 49045 when he died of wounds on the 11^th October 1918 aged 27. He had been captured on the 29^th April, 1918 at Voormezeele, he was interned at Termonde before being sent to Dulmen Prisoner of War camp.  Arthur died at Frechen, near Cologne.

He now rests at Cologne South Cemetery, Germany, where his headstone bears the epitaph:

“PREPARE YE, FOR YE KNOW NOT WHEN THE SON OF GOD COMETH”

In 1922 it was decided to concentrate the graves of servicemen who had died in Germany into four cemeteries at Kassel, Berlin, Hamburg. and Cologne. Over the course of the following year graves were transferred to Cologne Southern Cemetery from over 180 different burial sites.

His mother, living at 116 Fairview, Mosley Common, Boothstown, near Manchester, received his effects, including a War Gratuity of £13.  She died, aged 79, in 1928. 

Arthur is commemorated on his parents’ gravestone in Tyldesley Cemetery: 

 “Also ARTHUR FOSTER, son of the above, who died and was buried at Frechen Germany, Oct. 1918, aged 27 years.”

Arthur is also commemorated on

Tyldesley with Shakerley Cross

Tyldesley Cenotaph

Anchor Cable Works, Greater Manchester 

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