Owen Albert Brown

Owen Brown. 116750. His service number is actually 16750 ( the CWGC are correcting the entry) and he originally served in the 8th Battalion after enlisting in September 1914. His grave lies all alone on the Jolimetz cemetery. He was one of the last combat deaths suffered by the regiment in the war and DOW at a Regimental Aid Post in the village, which is why he is the only CWGC gravestone in the village cemetery. He was in charge of a Lewis Gun team who advanced through the Foret de Mormal. They were engaged by a German MG team and as he was returning fire and organising his team, he was mortally wounded. He was well known in local Football and Hockey circles.

Despite living in Letchworth, Owen was born in Arlesey in 1894, in the 1901 census he was living/staying with his Grandmother, Georgina Carter (a straw plaiter) on the High Street "near the Rose & Crown" pub. The Arlesey Remembers You team assume there must have been some members of the Carter family still in Arlesey when the memorial was erected who put his name forward to go on the inscription. His name should also be on the church alabaster memorial.According to the 1911 census he was a Bookbinder & lived in Common View, Letchworth. 

Clare Morris, an Arlesey resident who placed the cross on his grave on behalf on the Arlesey Remembers You project in 2014, reported that the Jolimetz Communal Cemetery is a tiny, local cemetery in a small village south of Le Quesnoy. It is actually on an unmarked road, signposted if approaching south from Jolimetz. Unusually, I believe, his grave is the only Commonwealth War Grave in the Cemetery. On entering the cemetery, it is at the far end of the first line of graves on the left. It was in a very clean, tidy state

This photograph was taken in 2015 by a resident of Jolimetz who is researching the history of the village. The Arlesey Remembers You cross can be still be seen a little faded a year on from when it was placed.

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The cross when it was first placed in 2014.

November 11th 2018 update: