Captain Arthur Chester BRANDON (1904)

1/4th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment
Born 7 September 1885 in Suffolk
Killed in action 21 January 1916, aged 30
Commemorated on the Basra Memorial, Iraq. Also commemorated at All Saints Church, Crondall, Hampshire.

Arthur Brandon was the son of the brewer Arthur J Brandon and Kate Alethea, née Foulsham, of Redfields, Church Crookham, Hampshire.

He was educated at Uppingham School, and matriculated at Merton in 1904. He worked in brewing, firstly at Brakespear’s of Henley and Stewart Paterson’s of Norwich before joining his father’s company, Brandon's Putney Brewery Ltd, in January 1912.

As the holder of a commission in the 4th Hampshire Territorial Force, he was mobilized in August 1914, and served first in the campaign of the Persian Gulf, where he was invalided, resulting in his transfer to India for some months.

Arthur Brandon was killed in action on 21 January 1916 near Felahie in Mesopotamia during the Battle of Hanna, part of the unsuccessful campaign to relieve Kut-El-Amara, an 8,000 strong British-Indian garrison in the town of Kut, 100 miles south of Baghdad.