Private (Acting Corporal) Arthur Llewellyn Cooper, 6th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, died of wounds on 19th March 1918 after having been gassed. He was born in Acocks Green in 1897 and was the second of the three children of parents John (an upholsterer) and Mary Elizabeth (née Llewellyn) who had married in 1895.
The family moved from Acocks Green to Warwick Road, Olton, sometime between 1901-1911. Poignantly, they included on the census return entry their son, John, listing him as one month old, although he actually died in 1895 at the age of one month.
Arthur Llewellyn Cooper joined the Great Western Railway and, according to the National Railway Museum, worked as a clerk in the Traffic Department at Solihull.
He must have volunteered for service in the Army, as his medal index card notes that he first entered a Theatre of War on 1st May 1915. He is buried at Mont Huon Military Cemetery, Le Treport, France and is also commemorated locally at St Margaret’s Church, Olton. His parents also placed a memorial tablet in his memory at Olton United Reformed Church.
Arthur’s only surviving sibling, Annie Beatrice Cooper (1898-1976) married widower Frank Herbert Biddle in 1926 and they had two children. Frank was a chemist and had a shop in Olton Hollow. His son, John Evelyn Biddle, was killed in April 1917, and his wife died on Christmas Day 1924.
If you have any further information, please let us know.
Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian
tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk
Solihull Life 
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