Notes
The Roll of Honour wrongly records his forename as 'Henry', and his regiment as the RASC; it lists his address as 5 Henry Street, and states that he drowned on an unspecified date.
(The man's forenames were actually Arthur John. He drowned in Peterborough on 24/4/1915, having been discharged from the Royal Garrison Artillery as medically unfit; his regimental number was 53638; his widow Gertrude was granted an Army Pension. A report of the inquest was printed in the Peterborough Express on Wednesday 5/5/1915, the first paragraphs of which read: 'DISCHARGED SOLDER FOUND IN THE RIVER. A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. A party of soldiers had a tragic find while boating in the river on Sunday morning. They were about half-a-mile on the Peterborough side of the Ferry Bridge when they saw a dark object in the water. Upon investigating they found it was the body of a man. Enquiries were made, and the deceased was identified as Arthur John Barham, aged 38, a married man living at 5 Henry-street. He had been missing for nine days. and it is estimated that that this is the length of time his body had been in the water. Owing to a nervous breakdown he was discharged from the Army, and it is said that that preyed on his mind. THE INQUEST. The inquest was held at the Fox and Hounds, Longthorpe, on Monday evening, and conducted by the Deputy Coroner (Mr. W. B. Buckle). Mr. Wm. Samworth was chosen foreman of the jury. Gertrude Alice Barham identified the body as that of her husband, a blacksmith, employed by Messrs. Barford and Perkins Ltd. He had been with the firm eleven years. Witness last saw him alive a week ago on Friday morning, at 8.30, when he went out to work. He was discharged from the Army in February through a nervous breakdown. He served as a volunteer in the Boer War, and re-joined the Army on Oct. 16th. He was in the Royal Garrison Artillery, and was promoted to Smith-Sergt. He first had his nervous breakdown just before Christmas time, and was invalided back to Peterborough until February 9th.
He was then discharged as medically unfit. He went back to Messrs. Barford's when he could. It was thought that going back amongst the men would pull him round. During the whole of the time he had been very depressed..' The Coroner commented that, whilst Arthur was known to have been agitated/depressed by his discharge, there was no actual evidence that he had committed suicide; the jury returned an open verdict of "Found Drowned". CWGC has no record of Arthur).