People on board

SUMNER, Arthur

Arthur Sumner was born in 1878 near Wilmslow, Cheshire to James Sumner, an Agricultural Labourer, and Mary Bower. Arthur was the third of their eight children and the eldest son. The family were living in the old township of Pownall Fee, now part of Wilmslow. In 1891 Arthur, then aged twelve, was working as a Farm Servant while his fourteen year old sister Sarah was a ‘Piecer and Cotton Operative’. Their mother Mary died in 1893 aged forty-four.

Arthur Sumner married Florry Cox in 1900 and they had two children, Norman in 1902 and Mary Elizabeth in 1908. In 1901 Arthur gave his occupation as ‘Gas Works Labourer’ and in 1911 as ‘Gas Stoker’. The family lived in Wilmslow before moving to Moston. Florry died in 1912 aged just thirty-two.
It is not known when Arthur Sumner enlisted in the Yorkshire Hussars but in October 1918 he was with the 2/1st Regiment in Ireland. This was a second-line training and draft supplying regiment which had moved to Ireland in April of that year. Whether he was returning home on leave or being moved to the front, he travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th. He did not survive the sinking nor was his body recovered. His name is recorded on the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton.

His entry on the Register of Soldiers’ Effects shows that he had appointed a Mary Ann Lyons as the guardian of his daughter Mary Elizabeth, then aged ten.