ARTHUR WILLIAM ANNIS

 7182, Private

7th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment.

Who died aged 34 on 24th July 1916

 

Cemetary Record  

Arthur was the son of Rosetta and Samuel Annis of Bergh Apton and uncle of Peter Annis of our present (2009) community. 

In the 1901 Census he was living in Birmingham, recorded as a Skilled Fitter and by 1911 he had returned to Norfolk where, at the time of the Census he was an attendant at the Heigham Hall asylum of medical practitioner and Mayor of Norwich (1914/15) Dr John Gordon Gordon-Munn.

His unit, 7th Battalion East Yorks Regiment was part of the BEF’s 17th (Northern) Division on the Somme.  It was badly mauled, with 118 casualties, in its first action at 2.30 on 1 July when it launched an attack on Fricourt from Becordel.  It was in action again towards Contalmaison on 6 and 7 July with 145 casualties and again on 10 July.  In this latter action heavy casualties were inflicted by enemy machine guns in Acid Copse (to the east of Contalmaison) on British soldiers advancing in the area of a small copse known as Quadrangle Wood.  The Battalion’s War Diary estimates that it suffered 142 casualties here before it was relieved by the 7th Leicesters.

It must have been in one of these four days of action that Arthur Annis was mortally wounded and evacuated right back to a Base Hospital in Rouen where he died, aged 34, on 24th July 1916.  

He is buried in St Sever Cemetery in the bend of the River Seine in the city of Rouen. 

 

This photo, taken in September 2008, shows the battlefield between Fricourt and Contalmaison where Arthur Annis was mortally wounded.  

 

 trench map that shows where the 7 East Yorks were at the end of the battles between 1st and 10th July 1916, in one of which Arthur Annis was wounded.