A Death Too Young: Pt3 Arthur Cousins

This is the continuing story of A Death Too Young. Part 1 and any other parts of this story of the Cousins family can be found by clicking on the tag Alfred R Cousins at the bottom of this post.

We learned in Part 2 that Alfred's brother Arthur almost certainly had an illegitimate son by Violet Rose Abrahams. This son was born in 1921 in Luton and named Ronald Cousins Abrahams.  He is followed in Part 2 of this story, as is the fate of his mother Violet.

I then moved on to Arthur, who originally agreed to pay for the support of his son but a year later stopped paying, and denied that he was the father. So what happened with Arthur? The last we saw of him ws 1923 when he was in court for non-payment.

We know he was in the 1891 and 1901 census of Toddington with his parents. In July 1907 at age 18 Arthur enlisted in the military in a Bedfordshire Regiment.  (Regimental Number 9107) The 1911 UK census on Ancestry indicates he was in Barracks in Aldershot, Surray with other soldiers from the 1st Battalion Infantry.

In 1912 he was promoted to Corporal and sent to France in 1914, where he remained until September 29,1915 when he was wounded. In 1916 he was discharged from the army as "no longer physically fit for war service" having suffered a gunshot wound in his right shoulder.

British Army WWI Pension Records 1914-1920 

Page 1 of 11 pages of Arthur's service files

Moving on to the 1939 UK Register we find Arthur John Cousins with birth date of 28 February 1889 living on Chapel Street in Luton. He is single and states his occupation as a master builder.

 

His death date is found in England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 as 24 October 1959 and his probated will was registered in London England on 4 December that year. He names his married sister Elsie in his will. Since no record of marriage was found, we might  theorize that he never married. Also from this probate it might also be theorized that he never acknowledged Ronald Cousins Abrahams as his son. 

There's one more blog post on this story. Check back in a few days to read the final post.