This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in May 2005, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.

Lance Corporal Arthur Odell

In the series of the men whose names appear on our War Memorial, we tell the story of another victim in the last year of that great tragedy

‘Killed bravely doing his duty’

Growing up in the same village, attending the same village school and joining up together as young soldiers in 1914 was a strong bond between many of the young men named on our War Memorial. In the most wretched days of the Great War, some of these Pirton lads found themselves alongside one another in the filthy, rat-infested trenches at The Front. Just such a brief reunion occurred early in 1916 when John Parsell, Arthur Odell and Fred Baines met up. In just over two years all three were united in death, their names forever linked on our War Memorial.

It is the second of these three young men that attention is now focussed: Arthur Odell. Looking at Pirton today, two things are hard to understand of the village a century ago. Poverty was the condition for many village families. Secondly, family links between so many was extraordinarily strong; cousins abounded even between the memorial names

The family had long been in Pirton. When and why the first Odell had come to this small rural community is lost in the mist of time, but we do know that Uriah (born in 1812) and his wife Ann (born 1815) were both Pirton people. They had many children, one of whom, John, married another Pirton lass, Mary Weeden. From the time that their eldest son, James, entered Pirton School in 1886, the School register tells of a succession of Odell children: Martha (in 1887), Robert (1889), Nellie (1891), Frank (1893), Willie in 1895) and Arthur, born in 1896, entering the village school in 1899.There were two other daughters, Jane born in 1881 and Marjorie, the youngest child of this large family. 

For most of this time, and much later, the family lived in Silver Street, early in the 20^th century renamed as Royal Oak Lane. The family is shown as living at number 2 Silver Street. This may well have been what is now no. 10 or 12; most attractive houses now, then much smaller, thatched and humble cottages.

So Arthur would have walked each day to school past the village pond just as children do today. Arthur’s school days were under the stern eye of headmaster, Mr Arthur Donson. Education at the School was sound but opportunities for work after Arthur left school in 1909 were limited, even the number of agricultural workers was falling as machines took over many of the centuries-old jobs.

Sometime after leaving school Arthur worked for a patent yeast firm, Bishof & Brooke of 24 Bucklersbury in Hitchin. Arthur would have spent most of his time taking the yeast from the Bucklersbury headquarters to a variety of bakeries in the town. Working a yeast round was fine, but whether this would have been the first rung of a ladder of success, he was not given the opportunity to find out.

The clouds of war were fast darkening and many young men saw joining the army to be both a way of showing one’s patriotic fervour and of getting away from a relatively humdrum life promising little for the future. No doubt Arthur and his village friends talked over endlessly the opportunities of joining up and early in 1914, still only 17, Arthur enlisted as a territorial with the 1^st Hertfordshire Regiment, the regiment that many of the local lads joined. He was one of nine Pirton lads to do so. In the local paper of November that year he was described as one making up  ‘Pirton’s Sacrifice’, although the sacrifice of his life was to be delayed until he was 22.

Arthur was already in France during the first month of the War. His baptism by fire started early, for he was soon to receive a bullet wound to his arm, which the local newspaper described as a ‘noble scar of battle’. Only the wartime writings of literary giants and some officers are known, no letters sent home by Arthur have survived. We do know of that fateful get-together of Arthur with John Parsell and Fred Baines early in 1916 when talk must have ranged over loved ones back in Pirton and reminiscences of village people and haunts which seemed so far away from those muddy, bloodstained trenches.

By the time of their reunion, the War had taken such a terrible toll on lives, that regiments were being reorganised as men replaced those killed. Arthur was moved to join the transport section of the 13^th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. He was wounded again, this time in the leg, but not before this 20 year old had been promoted to lance-corporal. He was to see the village once more on a short leave in November 1917, a brief reunion with his parents, those of his siblings not at war. There would have been few of his old Pirton schoolmates to share a drink with at any local pub – they were fighting their own battles.

On 26^th February 1918 an event stunned the country when German torpedoes sunk the Glenart Castle, a clearly marked hospital ship in the English Channel; 186 people died, only 31 survived. On that same day, Arthur Odell was killed in action, fighting somewhere between Cambrai and Peronne.

The news to his family was another shattering blow to all the people of Pirton. Deaths of Pirton men were running at one each month; a frequency almost unbearable to imagine in such a small village. The telegram arrived, the grief of the family began – increasing a community grief unlike any other the village has known. For all it’s well-meaning little solace can have been gained by the letter written to the family by Sgt J Watt, who related that the funeral took place two days after his death “It was attended by his two sergeants, NCO’s & 21 of his comrades. A cross marks the spot. Everything that we could do was done for him; he was esteemed by us all”. Capt H Collinson, his chaplain, in sending his condolences, stated that he ‘was killed bravely doing his duty’.

Just off the road between Cambrai and Peronne lies the village of Fins. Lance Corporal G/15640.  Arthur Odell,13^th  Battalion  Royal  Sussex   Regiment was buried at Fins New British Cemetery, Sorel-Le-Grand Somme, France (Ref 1V.C.10. On the roll of honour he is shown as the son of Mrs M Odell of 2 Royal Oak Lane; the omission of his father’s name was surely an error, for both parents are shown on his brother’s memorial, killed less than a year later. A monument inscription  in St. Mary’s churchyard reads: ‘Our dear boys Pte Frederick Odell, died of wounds 23 April 1919 aged 19, also Lce/Cpl Arthur Odell, killed in action in France 26 February 1918 aged 21’. Arthur’s name is also  on the memorial at All Saints Church Hertford to the dead of the 1^st Hertfordshire Regiment.

Mary Odell, Arthur’s mother, died 13th February 1926 aged 66, and his father, John, on 12th October 1939, aged 83.Both are buried in St. Mary’s churchyard.

Links in the village:

For their help with this article we thank: Grace Maidment, Clare Baines, Jonty Wild www.pirton.org.uk, Helen Hofton, Lynda Smith www.roll-of-honour.com, Colin Males &  Shirley Houghton.

Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk

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Please get in touch jontywild@pirton.org.uk

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