Person

Born to forge roller Charles Henry Carr and his wife Frances Ann Graham in Throston, Hartlepool on Christmas Day 1895, Arthur had older siblings, Thomas Henry (who also served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force), and Margaret. His mother remarried publican Carl Axel Renvall in 1908, and the family moved with their mother and step-father to live in Queens Hotel, South Shields.

By May 1914 Arthur was in Canada, having travelled steerage from Liverpool to Quebec, to live with his brother in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He enlisted on 27th August 1915 in the Canadian Army Medical Corps and was posted to no.10 Field Ambulance, a newly formed unit of 9 officers and 180 other ranks who arrived in France on 8 April 1916, and were involved in action from Mount Sorrel to Mons.

Arthur was awarded a Good Service Badge on 14th June 1918, took his annual 2 weeks leave in the UK and finally returned to Canada on board the RMS Baltic on 12th March 1919 as part of the general demobilization. He had been in service for 3 years and 185 days, and left the army with defective hearing caused by “climatic conditions and active service conditions”.

Returning to Saskatchewan, Arthur married Essex girl Eva Alice Pike in Humboldt in 1920, and they had a son Ronald Arthur, one year later.
In 1930 the family visited England, sailing from Montreal in November 1930 and returning from Southampton in January of the following year. Arthur’s occupation was listed as a railway inspector and their address was still in Saskatoon; they had been visiting Arthur’s mother who was now living in Surrey.

Arthur died suddenly of a heart attack in Vancouver on 13th September 1963.

Their son Ronald married Hilda Scott in 1947 in Red Deer, and he died in 1987, one year before Eva Alice, Arthur’s wife.

Civil Parish: Throston

Birth date: 1895

Death date: 1963-Sep-13

Armed force/civilian: Army

Residence: Throston, Hartlepool
Queens Hotel, South Shields (1911 census)
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, emigrated 1914

Military service:

Canadian Army Medical Corps
Number 10 Field Ambulance

Medal(s): Good Service Badge

Gender: Male

Contributed by Jean Longstaff