Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

31 July - 10 November 1917. By the summer of 1917 the British Army was able for the first time to fight on its chosen ground on its terms. Having secured the southern ridges of Ypres at Messines in June, the main attack started on 31st July 1917 accompanied by what seemed like incessant heavy rain, which coupled with the artillery barrages conspired to turn much of the battlefield into a bog. Initial failure prompted changes in the high command and a strategy evolved to take the ring of ridges running across the Ypres salient in a series of 'bite and hold' operations, finally culminating in the capture of the most easterly ridge on which sat the infamous village of Passchendaele. The Official History carries the footnote ?The clerk power to investigate the exact losses was not available? but estimates of British casualties range from the official figure of 244,000 to almost 400,000. Within five months the Germans pushed the British back to the starting line, which was where they had been since May 1915.

Detail :

Birth Register Q3 1879 in Registration District Lambeth, London [1d 550]. Later evidence show he was born at Herne Hill, London. He was married on the 20th December 1902 to Bessie Jane Paine at St. Michaels Church in Wood Green, Middlesex. He was 23 and she 25. The marraige record shows him living at 9 Saxon Street, Dover and his profession as a Civil Engineer. His father is listed as Frederick George Sherren, a Civil Servant. A family notice was placed in the Dover Express, Kent on 26th December 1902: Sherren—Paine.—On December 20th, at St. Michael's, Wood Green, by the Rev. J. Griffiths, M.A., Arthur Oswald Sherren, elder son of F. A. Sherren, of Wood Green, Bessie, second daughter of Captain Paine, R.M.S., Dover. The 1911 census shows him with a Public Offices, Cheriton, Kent address living with his wife, Bessie, now aged 30 and his son Brian aged 6, and daughters Mary and Margaret aged 4 and 7/12. A servant is also resident with them, a 19 year old May Fifield. His profession is listed as Civil Engineer (Engineer and Surveyor) Listed in the UK, Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919. 3rd August 1917. Rank Captain. Regiment: Buffs (East Kent) Regiment. Battalion: 4th (Territorial) Battalion. Type of Casualty: Killed in Action. Probate Record: Sherren Arthur Oswald of the Public Offices Cheriton Kent died 3 August 1917 in France or Belgiuim Probate London 23 October to Bessie Jane Sherren widow. Effects £425 0s 9d. The Grave Registration Record shows: SHERREN, Capt. Arthur Oswald. 4th Bn. The Buffs. 3rd Aug., 1917 Age 38. Son of the late Frederick G. and Ellie Sherren; husband of Bessie Jane Sherren, of 118, Folkestone Rd., Dover. [Inded No. M.R. 29 Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial Part XXXII (U.K.)]

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley