2nd Lieut Eric Arthur Stephenson

• Age: 23
• From: Pocklington, Yorks
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Friday 7th February 1919
• Commemorated at: Archangel Allied Memorial

Eric Arthur was born early in 1896 and baptised on 28^th April that year in Pocklington, Yorkshire. He was the eldest of four children children born to Arthur Wilson Stephenson, a railway clerk employed by the North Eastern Railway Company and his wife Frances Sarah (nee Allen), who married in 1895. His siblings were Harold and Cyril, both born in Hull, and Dorothy, born in York. The family was Methodist and his father was active in the Methodist Church.

In 1901 Arthur aged 30 , born in Pocklington and Frances S. aged 28 born in Yorkshire are living with their three young sons at 1, Wellstead Street, Frances Avenue, Kingston upon Hull. Eric is five years of age, his brothers are recorded as Harold aged 2 and Cyril A. M. who is new born.  

Sadly, Harold died the following year, at the age of 4.

The Census of 1911 finds the family living at Station House, Welbury, Northallerton where Arthur is the station master. He and his wife Frances have been married for 15 years and have had four children of whom three have survived. Eric Arthur is 15 years of age and at school as are his siblings Cyril Allen Manby aged 10 and Dorothy aged 8. 

His father left Welbury in 1916 and took up a new position as stationmaster at Crossgates in Leeds.

In 1918 and 1919, the electoral register shows Eric and Cyril Alban (sic) Stephenson living at Station House, Crossgates, Austhorpe, Yorkshire although Eric had enlisted, number 40069, in the Northumberland Fusiliers, where he reached the rank of Sergeant but on 29^th August 1917 was commissioned into the Yorkshire Regiment as temporary 2^nd Lieutenant and attached to the 2^nd Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment. On 17^th April 1918 he was reported wounded while attached to the West Yorkshires.

This was reported in the Skyrack Courier (Leeds):

"Sec.-Lieut. Eric A. Stephenson, Yorkshire Regiment (attached West Yorks.), son of Mr. A. W. Stephenson, stationmaster, Crossgates, near Leeds, is now in hospital at Newcastle-on-Tyne, suffering from a machine-gun bullet wound in the left thigh, received in action on March 25th."

In fact in late 1917 Eric had married Leonora Violet Robinson.

Lieutenant Stephenson was part of the North Russia Expeditionary Force, which left the UK in October and November 1918. From the Yorkshire Regiment he was then attached to the 17th Battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment.

On 04^th February 1919 whilst Eric was attached to the 17th Bn of the King's Liverpool Regiment the Bolsheviks captured Tarassova and that same day 23 other ranks from A Company, led by Second Lieutenant E A Stephenson arrived at Mejonovsky, near Seletskoe, as reinforcements. On 7^th February “B” Company, including these reinforcements, and accompanied by a French Company and an American Trench Mortar unit made a joint attack on the Bolshevik forces in the nearby town of Avda. They quickly took the nearby small town of Kodish but enemy resistance was so strong that the attack had to be called off. When the Allies returned to their previous positions it was found that Second Lieutenant Stephenson had been wounded and failed to join them at base. He was never seen again and presumably either died of his wounds or was killed by the enemy. In the same action Private William Graham was also killed and four other ranks wounded.

His death was officially accepted in August 1919, reported in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer on 28th August:

"Sec.-Lieut. E. A. Stephenson, Yorkshire Regiment (son of the stationmaster of Crossgates, Leeds), previously reported wounded and missing on the Archangel front February 7, 1919, is now presumed killed in action on that date."

Eric is commemorated on the Archangel Allied Memorial.

During both world wars, Archangel was one of the ports through which the Allies assisted Russia with supplies and munitions. The cemetery was begun immediately after the occupation of the town in August 1918 by the Allied force sent to support the Soviet Russian Government against potential threat from German occupied Finland and other local sources. It was used by No.85 General Hospital, No.53 Stationary Hospital, No.82 Casualty Clearing Station, HM Hospital Ship 'Kalyan' and other Allied hospitals. 

ARCHANGEL ALLIED CEMETERY contains 224 burials and commemorations of the First World War, including special memorials to 140 officers and men with known burials in cemeteries elsewhere in northern Russia. Two of the burials are unidentified. The cemetery also contains 7 Second World War burials. The ARCHANGEL MEMORIAL, which consists of panels fixed into the east wall of the cemetery, commemorates 219 British officers and men who died during the north Russian campaign and whose graves are not known.

His medal card shows that Eric was awarded the BWM and VM, which were sent to his widow who lived at 52 Beech Grove Road, Elswick Road, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Leonora  was granted administration on 12^th January 1920 in Newcastle upon Tyne in respect of Eric’s estate of £169 7s 8d. 

His brother Cyril had a son in 1922 he named Wilfred Eric Arthur.

Eric's medal card subsequently gives Leonora's contact address as c/o Mrs Stanton, 6 Victoria Street, N.ew Shildon, County Durham. In 1920 his widow had remarried to Oscar John Stanton, born 1895, who had also served the Yorkshire Regiment as 2^nd Lieutenant. Their son Oscar was born in 1926.

In 1939 Leonora, 44, lived with her husband and son in Spalding, Lincolnshire. She died in 1953, aged 58.

His parents had returned to Pocklington. His father, 68, had been retired since 1933, his mother was 67.

His father died a few months later, in January 1940 aged 68. It is not known when his mother died.

Eric is commemorated on the following Memorials:
 
Crossgates Methodist Church, Leeds

On the Roll of Honour (of those who served and returned) in St. Leonard's Church, Welbury (Corporal Eric Stephenson, Northumberland Fusiliers)

And on the Stephenson gravestone in Pocklington Cemetery -

ALSO 2ND LT. ERIC A STEPHENSON
      GRANDSON OF THE ABOVE      
KILLED IN ACTION, NORTH RUSSIA,
         FEB 7TH 1919, AGED 23   

Interestingly, Welbury, where Eric lived in 1911, is one of the very few villages to have a memorial which shows that none of its residents were killed during the Great War. Presumably they do not count Eric, who at the time of his death was no longer living there after his marriage. An online database, HellfireCorner.co.uk, notes that Welbury's standing as a Thankful Village is now in dispute, due to the death of Eric. 

We currently have no further information on Eric Arthur Stephenson, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.