SECOND LIEUTENANT ARTHUR FRANCIS DEANE
MACHINE GUN CORPS
16TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 27
BURIED: BEDFORD HOUSE CEMETERY, YPRES, BELGIUM
Second Lieutenant Deane's father, Henry Deane, has attributed to his son some of the essential qualities of a perfect Christian knight. We know very little of Arthur Francis Deane's life but we know enough to know that these were qualities more noted by their absence than their presence in his father's life.
Henry Deane was not his real name, it was Henry Pockett, and in 1896 Henry Pockett was sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined £500 for "obtaining money by false pretences from persons who wanted to borrow money from him". In his defence, Pockett said that he "had only followed the practice of other money-lenders" and appealed for leniency. But the judge said that Pockett had shown no sign of leniency to his victims, "and the majority of the applicants were people of the poorer classes who could ill afford to part with it [their money]".
The whole story can be read in this excellent article on the Epsom and Ewell History Explorer.
At the time of his father's imprisonment Arthur Francis would have been 6. His mother died the following year, at which point the family appear to have changed their name from Pockett to Deane. In the 1911 census, Henry Deane stated that he had been married for nine years to Florence Elizabeth Pockett and to have had one child from the marriage. The records show that he didn't marry Florence until 1917.
In the summer of 1916, Arthur Francis Deane returned from Shanghai where he had been working for Messrs Butterfield and Swire. He attested in Whitehall on 20 September and was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the Machine Gun Corps on 27 January 1917. He was killed in action outside Ypres during the Battle of Langemarck on 16 August. The War Diary records that the attack took place at 4.45 am:
"Two guns with 1st Londons on left got well forward and covered the advance from J.8b.1.6. 2/Lt Deane was with these guns which did excellent work and found many targets on the opposite side of the valley at ranges from 600 yards to 1500 yards. One of the guns was destroyed by shell fire and the greater part of the team became casualties."
Deane's body was found at map reference J.7.b.81.09 on 30 April 1921 and identified by his 'damaged discs and clothing'.