Friends of Hastings Cemetery


Fuller, Henry Arthur - Father & son

EM N08

In loving memory of
Henry Arthur Fuller
Who died… November 1912 aged 49 years


Henry Arthur Fuller
Son of the above
Who died of wounds in France
26th April 1918, age 26 years


Henry Arthur Fuller was born in 1864 in Northiam.  He was a grocery, wine and spirit merchant, having his own firm Fuller and Swatland.


He and his wife Sarah (born in Pluckley in 1861) had two sons.  Henry was the elder and was educated at St Leonards Collegiate School before following his father into the business.  His brother Charles Maynard (born in Hastings, 1894) also became a  Grocer’s Assistant.


Fuller & Swatland, provision merchants, (1901 Fuller & Swatland, Grocers & Wine & Spirit Merchants) in 1903 at no.2a Elphinstone road,  no.23 Kings Road and no.203 Harold Road.

 

Lieutenant Henry Arthur Fuller died of wounds on 26th April 1918 aged 25 whilst serving with 490th Field Co. Royal Engineers and is buried at Crouy-sur-Somme.   He was the son of Mrs and the late Henry Arthur Fuller of St Leonards and had been Mentioned in Dispatches.   He is commemorated on his father’s grave.


He was born in 1893 in Hastings and in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses the family lived at 34 Kenilworth Rd.


The obituary in the Hastings Observer tells us about his army career and how he came to die.  He had been a member of the Cadet Corps at School and risen to the rank of Lieutenant.  He joined the Royal Engineers as a private in 1914, initially as a sapper with Home Counties Signal Co., and went to France in December of that year.  He was promoted to Lance Corporal.  Sent back to England in the first half of 1915 as the result of an accident, he was given a commission in his own regiment on 22nd July 1915 and had been out in France since that date.  On 25th April 1918 he was on a reconnaissance mission when he was seriously wounded in the legs by a piece of shell and died the following morning.

His commanding officer, Major Douglas Herbert, wrote to his mother expressing his great sorrow at the loss of Lieutenant Fuller.  In his letter he also said that he was extremely proud of him and that he always showed great pluck, and, in spite of the pain arising from his wounds, kept smiling to the end.   Major Herbert went on to say that he could not find adequate words to express his appreciation of him, that he was one of the best and that every NCO in the company loved him and felt his loss very keenly.