Private Arthur Illtyd Wates HORLOCK (1898)

9th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment)
Born 9 August 1880 at Llantwit Major, Glamorgan, South Wales
Killed in action 3 July 1917, aged 36
Buried at Monchy British Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France. Also commemorated on the Woolwich Hospital war memorial Roll of Honour.

Arthur Horlock was the son of Maximillian Bates Horlock and Rebecca, née Wates, of 402, Alfreton Road, Nottingham. He was married to his cousin Jessie Madeline, née Davis, and they had one daughter, Nancy.

He was educated at the People’s College, and Nottingham High School from 1890 to 1898. He returned to the school briefly in 1905 as a teacher, before taking up a post as Mathematical Master at Woolwich Polytechnic Secondary School in south-east London. He also taught at Kivernell’s College, Hampshire, and George Green School, Poplar. He was a gifted pianist and organist.

He joined up at Greenwich in Easter 1916, and served in France and Belgium.

He was killed in action at Arras on 3 July 1917, whilst performing sentry duty.

An obituary in the Woolwich Polytechnic Magazine read:

Pacific in disposition, and philosophic in his detachment from everything appertaining to violence and hate he, nevertheless, offered his services voluntarily to his country and enlisted … as a private foot-soldier in a line regiment—the Royal Fusiliers. After three months’ training he went to France and saw a good deal of fighting in the lines as they moved on over the old battlefields of the Somme.