"He Was A Good Officer, And Died A True Soldier's Death"

As August wore on, news filtered out of the losses of July. Men who were wounded were now fit enough to write home and those who had been taken prisoner, were now in camps and had the time to put pen to paper to write home.
For Corporal Young of 'X' Company, 2nd Suffolk, who was taken prisoner at Longueval, he was now, after interrogation, interred in a PoW camp at Minden in Germany. After celebrating a rather surreal Minden Day, where guards and prisoners alike celebrated a battle 157 years previously, where once they had been allies against the French, Young now had time to write home of his actions on the Somme. Young was beside Lieutenant Evans when he was killed in the attack of 20th July, and via the Regimental Depot at Bury St. Edmunds, he managed to get a letter through to Evans family. "Lieutenant Evans I am sorry to say, got killed in an attack on the 20th July, whilst giving me instructions, and died within a couple of minutes of being hit in the head with a rifle bullet. No one is more sorry that I that he got killed as he was a good officer, and died a true soldiers death. The incident took place in Delville wood and in all probability, he was buried by the Germans or by shell fire."
Lieutenant Arthur Leslie Evans was born in Leytonstone, London and educated at at Bancroft School. His father, like many generations before him, was a stockbroker in the city. His uncle, also Arthur Evans, purchased in 1886, the popular weekly periodical "Vanity Fair" for a considerable sum of money. The rights to its valuable picture archive were transferred to his wife upon his death and now form the bulk of the Mary Evans Picture Library. At the outbreak of war, Evans enlisted as a private in the London Scottish; a prestigious territorial regiment, but by early 1915, his potential as an officer was noted and he took a place on an officer training course being commissioned into 2nd Suffolk in March 1915. A "keen, immensely likeable man" his body was never found and his is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

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