Chambers, Arthur

Arthur was born on 27th March 1919, to parents Frank (1890-1951 and Florence (nee Spicer – 1885-1980).  He was the youngest of four children. He had two sisters Minnie (1913-1972), Gladys who died aged 6 months in 1915 and one brother Frank (1917-1993).

The 1921 census states that Arthur aged 2 years 3 months and his siblings, Minnie aged 8, Frank nearly 4 and Geoffrey aged 2 months were living with their mother Florence and their widowed grandmother Amy Spicer, a laundress, at 29 Pickard Street, Warwick. Also living at the house were two of Florence’s sisters, Daisy Roberts aged 25 and Jane Webb aged 38, both widows.

Arthur’s father was visiting Alice Lyndon a widow in Kings Norton, Birmingham. Florence also was recorded in this census (apparently in two places at once)!

Arthur’s Aunt Daisy had married John Phillips Roberts in 1916; he was with the Machine Gun Corps and was killed in France in 1918 and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial (but he is not listed on the Warwick War Memorial.) Another Spicer sister Elizabeth married Robert Webb who also fell in WW1 and is commemorated on the Warwick Memorial

According to the 1939 census the family including Arthur’s nephew Peter were living at 103 Wathen Road, Warwick. Arthur’s occupation was a capstan lathe hand. Arthur’s father Frank was an electrical fitter and had joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment aged 18 in 1909 and served during WW1. He was wounded in December 1914 and was entitled to wear a wound stripe. He died in 1951 aged 60.