Sportsman of Loughborough Remembered

Serjeant T2/14153, Arthur Frederick Palmer

475th H.T. Coy, 10th Div. Train, Army Service Corps.

Died of Malaria 8th Sept. 1916, Aged 36.

Arthur Frederick Palmer was born on the 9th December 1879 at 15 High Street, Loughborough. He was the seventh son of Dr William Grimes Palmer and Mrs Elizabeth Anne Palmer, who had twelve children: Lucy Jane, William Grimes, Henry John, Ethel Alice, John, Edith Elizabeth, Arthur Frederick, Gertrude, Edwin,Sybil, Kathleen Mary and Margaret Elsie. The family moved to Thorpe Cottage, Derby Road, Knightthorpe, Loughborough where Dr Grimes died on the 15th November 1889 aged 45, leaving Elizabeth a widow. His personal estate was £1,757 16s 6d.

Fred Palmer was educated at the Loughborough Grammar School and was well known and liked in the town. He was a member of local sports clubs and enjoyed taking part, especially in football where he was a member of the Loughborough Corinthians Football Club. He was also a good oarsman and a member of the Loughborough Boat Club. Fred acted as goalkeeper for the Loughborough Hockey Club and was regarded as a ‘sound and useful player’.  In 1901 he was working as a mechanical engineer.

Arthur volunteered for active service at the outbreak of the war and enlisted in the Army Service Corps in August 1914. He went all through the Gallipoli campaign and served with the Salonika Army.  He was offered a commission, which he declined. He contracted malaria whilst on active service in Salonika and died at the Base Hospital on the 8th September 1916. His death was reported in the Loughborough Echo on the 15th September 1916.

Photograph: Kev Mitchell

Loughborough Corinthians FC, winners of the Leicestershire Junior Cup, 1900/01.

Arthur Palmer middle front row.

Serjeant* Arthur Frederick Palmer is buried at Triq Id-Duluri Military Cemetery, Pieta, Malta.  Grave reference: C. XI. 6.

  Photograph: Kev Mitchell

Sources:

National Archives

UK, De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, 1914-1919

Loughborough Roll of Honour

* Serjeant is the traditional spelling with Sergeant becoming popular after 1918.

© Dr Karen Ette

Captain Proudfoot, RAMC - KIA 2nd September 1916

Captain Harold Heafford Proudfoot

Royal Army Medical Corps.

Attd 26th Bde Royal Field Artillary

Killed in Action on 2nd September 1916

Age: 27

Harold Proudfoot was born on the 21st August 1889 in Claremont, St Anne, Jamaica, the son of the Rev. James Proudfoot and his wife, Harriet Heafford Proudfoot. Harriet was born in Mountsorrel in 1859 and in 1901, when Harold was eleven, he lived with his mother and nine-year-old sister, Winifred, at 302 Main Street Mounstorrel.

Harold attended Quorn Grammar School and then in 1903 became a boarder at the Loughborough Grammar School.

In April 1911 the family had moved to 24 Frederick Street in Loughborough and Harold was, a Medical Student. He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1911.

Harold served as a Lietenant in 1915 and gazetted in April 1916. He served as Captain with the R.A.M.C. attached to the R.F.A.

In September 1916 Captain Proudfoot was in the Mametz area of France when he was killed, along with two other officers, by a bursting shell on Saturday, 2nd September, aged just 27.

On the 12th January 1917 probate in London gave his effects as £817 11s 4d, which was paid to his father who was then living at 279 Derby Road, Nottingham.

Captain Harold Heafford Proudfoot is buried at Dantzig Alley British Cemetery, Mametz VIII. I. 7  

He is remembered on the Loughborough War Memorial, St Peter’s Church Mountsorrel Roll of Honour, Edinburgh University’s Roll of Honour, Rawlins Old Quornians Association Roll of Honour, Loughborough Grammar School’s Roll of Honour and the Lenton War Memorial.

Sources: The National Archives                Loughborough Roll of Honour

© Dr Karen Ette