Army
Niblett, Arthur Edmund
Arthur Edmund Niblett
Rank: 2nd Corporal
Regiment: 16th Signal Company, Royal Engineers
Parents: Mr Robert & Mrs Ada Emily Niblett
Parent’s Address: 71 Sedlescombe Road North, St Leonards
Wife: Elsie Niblett
Address: 7 Challoner Grove, South Shields
Other Info: Arthur Niblett died aged 26 on 29th July 1920. He is buried at Hastings Cemetery. The inscription on his grave reads “The years shall not outgo our memory of thee”.
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2 COMMENTS
He was born in 1894 at Littlehampton, Sussex.
In the 1901 census he was with his family at 38 Albert Street, Cheltenham. His father Robert was a professor of music on his own account. There was also a sister, Leoni.
In the 1911 census he was a boarder in the house of Margaret Young, widow, at 206 Ocean Road, South Shields. He was an electrical engineering apprentice in the switchboard industry, together with sister Clara, a milliner’s apprentice, and his mother Ada Emily. His mother was married, but her husband was not listed in the household.
That is because he was at 20 New Walk, Leicester, where his occupation was “bandmaster Royal Italian Circus”. The house was a boarding house headed by 31-year old Lillian Carr, spinster, who had two sisters living there, both barmaids at an opera house; her parents; and four boarders, one being Robert, another a pianist, also at the Royal Italian Circus, someone who was “theatrical”, and a bank clerk.
The Royal Italian Circus was performing at the Empress Rink on Aylestone Road. The earliest known newspapers linking Niblett with the circus is from, as it happens, South Shields. On the front page of the 7 February 1910 issue of the “South Shields Gazette” there is a detailed advertisement of the Royal Italian Circus, giving many details, and naming Mr R. Niblett as the bandmaster. In the 17 February issue we are told that the circus is going on to Edinburgh. The last newspaper sighting of him linking him with the circus in in August 1911, when the circus was coming to Devonport, Devon.
In the 1920 electoral register for Hastings he and his mother are listed as the only voters at 50A Castle Hill Road; she is the only voter there in the 1921 register.
I was unable to identify the marriage to Elsie.
Very interesting, thank you Stephen.