Arthur Gumley

Corporal Arthur Gumley had previously served with the 4th battalion Leicestershire Regiment and had left having timed served. He was mobilised for war on 27th August 1914 at Leicester, he served with the 1/4th battalion Leicestershire Regiment. He was promoted to Lance Corporal on 25th February 1915 and landed in France on 2nd March 1915. He was promoted to Corporal on 21st May 1915. He was wounded in action, a gun shoot wound to his head on 24th May 1915 and admitted to No 3 Casualty Clearing Station and then on to Wimereux Hospital. He died from his wounds at Wimereux hospital near Boulogne on 11th June 1915 and is buried in Wimereux Communal Cemetery

His obituary dated 18th June 1915 in the Retford Times reads ; - Lance Corporal Gumley - Deepest sympathy is felt with Mrs Eva Gumley of 105 Thrumpton Lane Retford in the loss of her husband, Lance Corporal Gumley of the 4th Leicester Regiment, who has died from wounds received in the trenches on May 24th. Mrs Gumley received the following letter from the lady superintendent of the hospital at Wimereux near Boulogne :- I hope that my letter of yesterday may have in some measure prepared you to hear that after I wrote yesterday morning your poor husband got rapidly worse, all yesterday and last night , until he died very easily and quietly at ten minutes to eight this morning. We are all so distressed by his death. He was getting on so well and we had every hope that he would be able to go home. As so often happens in these cases of head injuries, he got inflammation of the brain and became quite unconscious and quite rapidly got worse and worse until his end came. We are sure he did not suffer at all at the last. He will be buried tomorrow in the cemetery here at Wimereux. It is a very pretty place on a hillside. I send you a picture of it, as you will wish to see where your poor husband is buried. With deep sympathy in your great loss. Lance Corporal Gumley who was 24 years of age, was formerly a commercial traveller for Messrs Joseph Crosfield of Carrington, and enlisted soon after the outbreak of the war . The poignancy of his death is intensified by the fact that he was married only three months ago at Bishops Stortford to a daughter of Mr & Mrs Alfred Dobson, Thrumpton Lane. Mrs Gumley has two brothers and a brother in law serving with the 8th Sherwood Foresters (T.F)