Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Philip Hamilton TRUEMAN OBE
8th (Service) Battalion East Kent Regiment (The Buffs)

Date of birth: 20th September 1880
Date of death: 26th November 1918

Died aged 38
Buried at Grave A13463 in Mansfield (Nottingham Road) Cemetery
He was born at Oakwell House, Blean on the 20th of September 1880, the third son of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hamilton Trueman JP OKS, East Kent Regiment (The Buffs), and Dorethea Magdalena (nee Fitzgerald) of Oakwell-in-the-Blean, Canterbury.

He attended the Junior King's School from September 1892 to 1893.

He was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion (East Kent Militia) Buffs on the 14th of February 1899 and was commissioned as a regular army officer on the 26th of September 1900. He was seconded for service with the Indian Staff Corps in December 1901, was promoted to Lieutenant on the 12th of December 1903 and to Captain on the 2nd of March 1912. He played cricket for both the Army and for his regiment.

On the 22nd of November 1912 he was appointed a Company Officer at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

He played cricket for the Army, for his regiment and for the Staff College. On the 26th of August 1914 he played in a three day match for Ireland against Cambridge University at Cork.

At the outbreak of war he was in the 1st Battalion attached to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was promoted to Major on the 1st of September 1915 and went to France where he took command of the 8th Battalion of his regiment on the 7th of October 1915, being promoted to temporary Colonel the same day to replace Colonel F.C. Romer who had been killed on the 26th of September at the Battle of Loos where the battalion had suffered casualties of 24 officers and 610 men in the attack on Hulluch.

In early February 1916 he was admitted to hospital suffering from shell shock and although he was listed as being with the 8th battalion he was no longer with them. He re-joined the battalion, with a draft of one hundred and thirty men, on the 29th of May 1916.

He was an instructor for a time at the Royal Military College Sandhurst following which he was appointed to form and command a cadet battalion in Devon on the 26th of February 1917 with who he remained until the end of the war.

He was awarded the OBE which was announced in the London Gazette of the 10th of July 1918.

On the 10th of July 1917 he announced his engagement to Violet Victoria Bewes in the Times. She was the youngest daughter of Mr Charles Bewes of Gnaton Hall, Yealmpton, Devon. They lived at Newton Ferriers in Devon.

He died of influenza and pneumonia at the Swan Hotel, Mansfield in Nottinghamsjore on the 26th of November 1918, the same day as his wife who was only 21. They were buried together on the 29th of November 1918.


His brother, Captain Charles Fitzgerald Hamilton Trueman (OKS) 2nd Battalion Manchester Regiment , was killed in action on the 26th of August 1914.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at Blean.
Junior King's School

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