Private Arthur Stenson died of wounds at the 19th Field Ambulance, serving with the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers. The Commonwealth War Graves website gives his date of death as 9th December, although Soldiers Died in the Great War and Register of Soldiers’ Effects both record him as dying on 7th December.

Born in Birmingham in 1887, Arthur was living in Marston Green Cottage Homes by the 1891 census when he was three years old. He was still there ten years later, aged 14, and working as a bricklayer’s labourer’s boy. Cottage Homes were established in the 19th century to house children who would otherwise have gone into the workhouse. The intention was to keep children away from the adult inmates who could be bad influences. Many Cottage Homes educated the children, sometimes even better than they would have been outside the Homes, and taught them a trade so that they would be able to earn a living once they left.

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