Arthur Charles WILTON

  General Notes:

Sourced from "Wilton Family Web Site"

http://www.jcwilton.com// (no longer exists)

In Memory of

ARTHUR CHARLES WILTON

Lance Corporal
4544
lst/4th Bn., Hampshire Regiment
who died on
Wednesday, 28th June 1916. Age 21.

Son of Charles Henry and Ellen Augusta Wilton, of Fenteriarrick,
Washaway, Cornwall. Native of St. Neot, Cornwall.


Cemetery: BASRA WAR CEMETERY, Iraq
Grave Reference V. Q. 14.


Basra is a town on the west bank of the Shatt-al-Arab, 90 kilometres from
its mouth in the Persian Gulf. The cemetery is about 8 kilometres
north-west of Basra. Also to be found in the cemetery is the Basra
(Janooma Chinese) Memorial which commemorates over 200
unidentified members of the Chinese Labour Corps who were attached to the
Inland Water Transport and who are buried in Tanooma Chinese Cemetery,
but whose graves were found to be unmaintainable.

Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia and an integral part of the Turkish
Empire, became a kingdom after the 1914-1918 War when, under
the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), Turkey renounced sovereignty over
Mesopotamia; but a republican form of government was set up in 1958 after
the assassination of Faisul II and other members of the Royal Family.
Lying between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris and stretching from Turkey
on the north and north-east to the Persian Gulf in the south and
south-east, and from Iran on the east to Syria and the Arabian Desert on
the west, Iraq corresponds approximately to ancient Mesopotamia. Basra
takes its name from the great military camp founded in A.D. 637 near
Zobeir by Omar, the second Caliph, to control lower Iraq and especially
the sea approaches. From this camp sprang the famous city of ~Basrah, the
Venice of the East". Its port was the anchorage for boats from countries
as far away as China. As time went on the canals which connected Basrah
with the Persian Gulf silted up, until finally all communication with the
Gulf was cut off and the town was
transferred to a new site near the confluence of the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates - the Shatt-al-Arab - 56 miles from its mouth in the Persian
Gulf. This town was taken by the Turks in the 15th century. In 1914 it
was a straggling commercial centre, and its primitive port had neither
quays nor wharves. It was evacuated by the Turks on 20th November, 1914,
and was formally occupied by the 6th (Poona) Division of the Indian Army
on the 23rd. From that date it was the British Base in Mesopotamia and
was developed into a first class port. During the 1939-1945 War, for a
few days Basra was the scene of fighting. Between the 2nd and 7th May,
1941, Iraqi forces were driven from the airport, docks and power station,
the business quarter (Ashar) and the city itself. Thereafter Basra became
again a British base. Various cemeteries at or near-Basra were used, or
begun, by the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force; they were for the most
part removed after the Armistice, and the graves transferred to the War
Cemetery. The War Cemetery was begun in December, 1914, when MAKINA MASUS
OLD
CEMETERY (as it was called later) was made in a date garden 4 1/2 miles
North-West of Basra and half a mile from the Shatt al Arab. This
cemetery was closed in October, 1916, when it contained 769 graves, and
HAKIMIYA CEMETERY, about a mile away, was opened. In August, 1917,
Hakimiya Cemetery, containing 341 graves, was closed, and MAKINA MASUS
NEW EXTENSION CEMETERY was begun, alongside the Old Cemetery. The Old and
New Cemeteries, enlarged later by the concentration of over 1,000 graves
from other burial grounds, form the War Cemetery. Among the burial
grounds from which graves were concentrated into Basra War Cemetery were
AHWAZ CEMETERY, in Persia, containing 14 graves; HAKIMIYA CEMETERY; LYNCH
BROTHERS' CEMETERY, MAQIL, a pre-war burial ground containing seven War
Graves of 1914-15; MAQIL BRITISH COMMUNITY CEMETERY, a pre-war cemetery
containing ten War Graves;
MOHAMMERAH BRITISH CIVIL CEMETERY, containing 13 War Graves of 1916-17;
NASIRIYA CEMETERY, where 120 British soldiers were
buried, mainly from hospitals; QURNA CEMETERY, containing 48 British War
Graves; SHAIBA CEMETERY (properly Shu'aiba), containing 101 British
graves, mainly of the 2nd Norfolks and the 2nd Dorsets, and almost all of
March-April, 1915; TANOOMA BASE ISOLATION HOSPITAL CEMETERY, begun in
1917 and containing 120 graves; and TANOOMA CEMETERY, begun in 1916 and
containing 57 graves. Across the road to the South, and forming part of
the War Cemetery, are two Indian plots; in one are buried Indian
Muhammadan soldiers and the Turkish prisoners and in the other the bodies
of Hindu soldiers were cremated. Neither the names nor the number of
these Indian soldiers were recorded, but the two plots are enclosed and
marked by three memorials. One memorial is to the Hindus and Sikhs; one
is to the Indian Muhammadan soldiers; and one is to 278 Turkish soldiers
buried by British troops at Basra and elsewhere. The Indian soldiers are
commemorated by the Basra Memorial-to those soldiers of the Empire who
fell in 'Iraq and whose graves are not known. The headstones marking the
1914-1918 graves were removed in 1935 after severe problems were
encountered with the salts. Instead, the
names of the casualties buried in these graves are recorded on a screen
wall standing on the right hand side of the main path between the
entrance and the Cross of Sacrifice. A plaque commemorating 227
unidentified members of the Inland Water Transport who were buried in
Tanooma Chinese Cemetery but whose graves were lost when the area was
built over by the Port authorities has also been added to this wall. The
1939-1945 service war burials number nearly 400. This figure includes
over 100 graves brought into the cemetery from Amara War Cemetery, Iraq;
Nasirah R.A.F Cemetery, and Sharjah R.A.F. Cemetery, Arabia; Ur]unction
Military Cemetery, Iraq; Ahwaz British Military Cemetery, Ahwaz Christian
Civil Cemetery, Andimeshk Military Cemetery, Minama (Bahrein) Mission
Cemetery and Khurramshahr Military Cemetery, all in Iran (Persia), where
permanent maintenance could not be assured. In addition there are 4
non-war graves. One is that of a civilian member of the Air Ministry
Meteorological Branch, and another the grave of a soldier of the United
Kingdom Forces whose death after the war was not due to his war service,
and the remaining two were Polish civilians brought into the cemetery
together with twenty Polish Army casualties from Ahwaz Military Cemetery.
A special memorial commemorates a man of the Royal Air Force who was
buried in Basra Jewish Cemetery, but whose grave is now lost. The
memorial records these facts and bears the quotation "Their Glory
shall not be blotted out". An archway through a rather fort-like
gatehouse, which marks the entrance to the cemetery, opens on to the main
path leading first to the Cross of Sacrifice and then to the Stone of
Remembrance, which were both erected after the 1914-1918 War. The
1939-1945 War graves are near the entrance.