Arthur Fielder PRIOR

Regimental number934
Place of birthBoston, Lincolnshire, England
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Address26 East Park Road, Leicester, England
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation19
Next of kinMother, Mrs E Prior, 26 East Park Road, Leicester, England
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date25 March 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name24th Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/41/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on 10 May 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll24th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 9 October 1916
Age at death from cemetery records20
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), Belgium

The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave.

The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936.

Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign.

Panel number, Roll of Honour,
  Australian War Memorial
102
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Walter and Emma PRIOR, Glenfield House, Dorothy Avenue, Skegness, Lincolnshire, England. Native of Boston, Lincolnshire, England
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 30 August 1915. Wounded in action, 28 September 1915 (glass fragment, cheek); transferred to Malta; thence to General Hospital, Gibraltar, 15 October 1915; to No. 2 Southern General Hospital, Bristol, England. Proceeded to join unit, Ghezireh, Egypt, 6 March 1916. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 20 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 26 March 1916.

Wounded in action, 28 July 1916 (shell wound, head); admitted to 1st Canadian General Hospital, Etaples, 29 July 1916; rejoined unit, 16 August 1916.

Wounded in action, 3 May 1917 (gun shot wound, left side); admitted to 9th General Hospital, Rouen, 4 May 1917. Transferred to England, 16 May 1917, and admitted to 3rd Southern General Hospital, Oxford, 17 May 1917. Marched in to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, from furlough, 23 June 1917; proceeded overseas to France, 26 July 1917; rejoined Bn, 14 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 9 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal