Home  |   The Great War  |   Second World War  |   Other Conflicts  |   Useful Links  |   Contact Us

 

2nd Lieutenant Arthur Sidney Pelham BURN
1/6th (Banff and Donside) Battalion Gordon Highlanders Date of birth: 30th June 1895 Date of death: 2nd May 1915 Killed in action aged 19 Buried at Estaires Military Cemetery II Row A Grave 1
Arthur Sidney Pelham Burn was born at the Chantry, St Stephen in Norwich on the 30th of June 1895 the third son of the Venerable William Pelham Burn, Archdeacon of Norfolk and Alice Marguerite Gordon (nee Rate) Burn later of Sandy, Limpsfield in Surrey. He was christened at St Peter Mancroft Church, Norwich on the 4th of August 1895. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Seconds House from May 1910 to the 6th of August 1914. He suffered with ill health in his early years at Lancing but went on to be appointed as a House Captain in May 1913, as a Prefect in January 1914 and was a Sergeant in the Officer Training Corps where he achieved Certificate A. He won his House Colours for Football. While at school he served in the chapel as School Sacristan and had hoped to take holy orders, having matriculated for New College Oxford (1915 entry), but, on the outbreak of war he joined the army instead. He applied for a commission in the 6th Battalion Gordon Highlanders on the 28th of September 1914 in an application which was supported by Captain Henry Pelham-Burn of the 6th Battalion Gordon Highlanders. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Battalion on the 14th of October 1914 and, after a period of training with his battalion at Bedford, he sailed for France with his battalion, landing at Le Havre on the 10th of November 1914. By Christmas day the Battalion was in the trenches near the Sailly-Fromelles road, to the west of Lille, where the trenches were only 60 yards apart. During the Christmas truce both sides emerged from their trenches to bury the more than 100 bodies from both sides that were lying in no man’s land from the previous fighting. He wrote the following in a letter to a former school friend from Lancing:- The mass burial, led by Chaplain Adams of the Gordon Highlanders, was – “...awful, too awful to describe, so I won’t attempt it. A service of prayer was arranged and amongst them was a reading of the 23rd Psalm and an interpreter wrote them out in German. They were read first in English by our Padre and then in German by a boy who was studying for the ministry. It was an extraordinary and wonderful sight. The Germans formed up on one side, the English on the other, the officers standing in front, every head bared. Yes, I think it was a sight one will never see again.” On the 13th of March during the 6th Gordon’s advance at the Battle of Neuve Chappelle, his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Colin McLean, while attempting to establish contact with the 2nd Gordons on his right, fell mortally wounded having been hit by a sniper. Arthur Burn rushed forward to his assistance and gave him his own morphia tablets. The Colonel thanked him and sent him back saying “And now my boy, about your duty. Your place is with your company.” Arthur Burn was slightly wounded during the battle and was mentioned in despatches for his bravery. On the 2nd of May 1915 he was in trenches near Neuve Chappelle when he was shot and killed by a sniper. His Commanding Officer wrote:- "I was struck at once by his intelligence and keenness throughout; he had a remarkable habit of command with his men, who were most attached to him....the battalion has lost in him one of its best and most experienced officers....he won the affection of his men to a remarkable degree and their confidence in him, was amply vindicated in the fine way he led then at Neuve Chappelle." Arthur Pelham-Burn wrote from the front about Lancing:- "I can't tell you what those services meant and do mean to me now. I can only pray that one day I may be allowed to come back to the Chapel." In the Advent term of 1916 his friend, 2nd Lieutenant Hubert Cecil Charles Riley OL (Heads 1910-1914) Coldstream Guards presented a brass tablet to be placed in his memory in the floor of the south aisle of the school chapel. His brother, Lieutenant Maurice Edward Pelham Burn 8th Battalion Black Watch, was killed in action on the 9th of April 1917. He is commemorated on the war memorial at St Peter's Church at Limpsfield in Surrey and on the memorial on the side of the Memorial Stores in the village.

Seconds House