Marston, AB

2nd Lieutenant Arthur Bright Marston

Born on October 10^th 1897, Arthur was the sixth of seven children born to magazine publisher and editor Robert Marston and his wife Fanny. He started at the College at the beginning of 1911 having been preceded at Dulwich by his two elder brothers, Edward and Robert, and would also later be joined by his younger brother, Cyril. Arthur’s time as an Alleynian lasted for three and a half years, until he left in the summer of 1914 whilst a member of the Modern Lower Fifth. After Dulwich he served on the staff of Publishers’ Circular, and the Fishing Gazette, two magazines edited by his father.

In April 1915 Arthur joined an Officers Training Corps, and that August was gazetted to a commission in the Royal West Surrey Regiment. He went over to France in February 1916, spending his first few months in the Albert sector, before being reassigned to the Somme in preparation for the great offensive that summer. He was one of the only officers of his battalion to survive the attack on Montauban on July 1^st, the first day of the Somme, although he fell not long afterwards. On July 13^th he was shot through the knee near Trones Wood and, unable to be evacuated, was killed in a shell blast the following day while still lying on a stretcher. His younger brother, Cyril, a fellow OA, would also go on to lose his life in the war.