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213488 2nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
(21348 on Medal Roll)
Arthur Martin was born in Ballingdon around 1877, the son of Adam and Mary Ann Martin. His father was employed as a brickyard labourer and his mother a horsehair weaver.
At the age of 14, Arthur was employed as grocer’s assistant and lived with his widowed mother, two sisters and lodgers at 6 Harrows Yard, Ballingdon Street. Arthur went on to work as a brickmaker and married Rose Hannah Daniels in 1906. They lived with their daughter Florence at 5 Prince Street.
Arthur enlisted and served with the Suffolk Regiment, he first served in France on 15 December 1915. From October 1915 the battalion formed part of 76th Brigade, 3rd Division and saw action on the Somme in 1916 and at Arras in the spring of 1917. Later that year the battalion saw action during the Third Battle of Ypres more commonly known as ‘Passchendaele’ at the Battle of Polygon Wood. Between 26 September and 3 October 1917 there were 20,000 Allied casualties killed, missing or wounded.
It is not known when or why Arthur ended up at the Military Detention Hospital, although it states ‘detention hospital’ it is possible that this hospital was being used to cope with the vast amount of casualties during this offensive.
Arthur died aged 40 on 28 October 1917 at the Military Detention Hospital, in Middlesbrough. He was buried in Sudbury Cemetery (Plot QQ 65) on 3 November 1917.
He was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.
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