1914-1918 First World War Centenary

1 November 2018

Arthur Leslie Hicks and his twin brother, Francis Bryan Hicks, were born on 19 April 1884 to Constance Laura Hicks and Arthur Hicks at Murree, Bengal, India. By 1901 the family were living at Kinburn Estate, 1 Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey with daughters Constance and Doris born in 1891 and 1893 respectively at Streatham, the birthplace of both parents.  Both boys, age 16 were then boarding at Malvern College.  Arthur Hicks senior is listed as a Chartered Engineer.  We have been unable to find the family on the 1891 UK census so they may only have returned to England from India in that year.

Arthur attended Hill Brow School, a preparatory school in Eastbourne which took boys from the age of seven to 13 years.

He enrolled at Harper Adams in 11 October 1903 and left on 31 March 1904 to join the office of Messrs. Buckland and Son in Windsor as an estate agent.

In 1911 Arthur, aged 26, was boarding at Derby House Derby Road Nottingham and described as a valuer and India Punjab Resident.  The family were living at Coopers Hill Lodge, St Georges Avenue, Weybridge, Surrey with Francis, now an accountant at the same address on that date. Their father was by then an Indian Office Pensioner, Chartered Patent Agent. 

Arthur served with the 11th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment and died of wounds on 4 April 1918 age 34. His body was removed from a German grave in 1924/25 and reburied at Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez (Cemetery/memorial reference: XX. E. 15.)

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/586020/hicks,-arthur-leslie/

"Cabaret Rouge" was a small, red-bricked, red-tiled café that stood close to this site in the early days of the First World War. The café was destroyed by shellfire in March 1915, but it gave its unusual name to this sector and to a communication trench that led troops up the front-line.

Situated between two war cemeteries, one French and the other German, Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery lies south of the town of Souchez in France. It was greatly enlarged in the years after the war when as many as 7,000 graves were concentrated here from more than 100 other cemeteries in the area. The cemetery contains more than 7,650 burials of servicemen of the British Empire in the First World War, over half of which remain unidentified.

https://www.cwgc.org/find/find-cemeteries-and-memorials/64600/cabaret-rouge-british-cemetery

At the time of Arthur’s death his parents lived at 113, Finchley Rd., Hampstead, London.

Arthur’s twin brother Francis also attended Malvern College. He survived the First World War and appears in the 1939 register as a Petroleum Engineer, Retired Accountant (not chartered) at 26 Crescent Road , Melksham, Wiltshire.  A person of the same name is listed as a Great Western Railway shareholder in 1928.