Arthur William Adcock

Private - Service No. 200028 (883) - 1st Battalion Norfolk Regiment

Arthur William Adcock, the son of James Adcock and his wife Mildred (Reeve), was born on 21st December 1888 in Wreningham, Norfolk. He was the third of eight children, Ester (1885), Benjamin (1886), John (1890), Mildred (1894), Edith (1899), Walter (1901) and Kenneth (1906). James and Mildred married at Honingham, Norfolk, in 1884 and lived at Hethel, Wymondham, Wreningham, Foulsham, Briston and back to Foulsham by the time their eighth child, Kenneth, was born in 1906. By 1911 the family were living in Mulbarton and Arthur was working as an agricultural labourer.

In early 1914 Arthur married Phoebe May Luckings in Norwich, Norfolk and their first child, Edna, was born in Mulbarton a few months later, just weeks after war was declared. Phoebe Luckings had been born in Chelsea, London, in 1892, the daughter of William Luckings of Camden Town and his wife Susan (Cullum) of Swardeston. It seems likely that Phoebe and her baby daughter lived with the Cullum family in Wood Lane, Swardeston, when Arthur joined the army in 1915 and went off to war.

Arthur joined the 1st Battalion Norfolk Regiment with the rank of Private, initially with Service No. 883, later to become 200028 and embarked for the Balkans on 9th August 1915. He survived the war and was disembodied (basically, placed on reserve) on 23rd March 1919. His army records do not survive but we know he was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal, a combination often irreverently referred to as Pip, Squeak and Wilfred.

After the war Arthur and Phoebe moved into Norwich and had five more children, Margaret (1920), Arthur (1922), Hazel (1930), David (1931) and Hugh (1933). Phoebe died in Norwich in 1949 and Arthur passed away at Trowse, Norfolk, in 1967, at the age of 78. 

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