Private Arthur F Bland Machine Gun Corps

Corps Button WWI

Arthur Bland was a private No. 53242 in the 61st Company of the Machine Gun Corps (Inf) and he died on
Tuesday 14th August 1917. Age 26.

He was the 5th son of Elizabeth Bland and the late William Bland of 24 Post Office Row, Great Glen. Like other men in the village he enlisted in Leicester into the Leicestershire Regiment (No. 25190) and was then transferred out into the Machine Gun Corps.

In 1901 he was living with his widowed mother, Elizabeth, in School Street, Great Glen. The man of the house was Arthur’s eldest brother Ernest (19) who was working as a hosiery hand. The next son, Bertie (14) was an errand boy and Fred (12), Arthur (9) and Percy (7) were still at school as was their young sister Beatrice (4). The second son, Harry(16) was living in on a farm in Illston on the Hill as a stableman. William, a gardener by trade, had died in 1897 aged 37 leaving Elizabeth with 7 children.

Machine Gun Corps

61st Company, Machine Gun Corps was part of 61st (2nd South Midlands) Division. The Division took part in the Flanders Offensive between 7th June 1917 and 10th November 1917.
The Battle of Langemark in August 1917 saw the British take the small town on Langemark from the Germans (the Germans had taken it from the British in the Spring of 1915) . This battle was part of the Passchendale Offensive in the Third Battle of Ypres. It was to change hands two more times before the end of the war. It was during this battle that Arthur was killed.

Artillery Wood

Arthur is commemorated in Artillery Wood War Cemetery near Ieper, West-Vlaanderer Belgium Ref. II. F.2. To find directions to the cemetery please click on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission link.

Artillery Wood

Arthur was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.