Today we remember Sgt Arthur Bates of the 1st Battalion Lincolnshire regiment. A regular soldier before the Great War, he had seen action in South Africa and more recently in India before returning home and placed in depot reserve at Lincoln.
Rejoining his battalion when war was declared on the 4th August, Arthur and the 1st Battalion were mobilised to France and on the 24th August were involved in a rearguard action during the allied retreat.

Sgt Arthur Bates was killed in action whilst a brave few men of the Lincolnshire regiment held an orchard in Fromelles in front of the advancing German Army.

Arthur was the first Morton man to be killed in the Great War and as well as his grave in the communal cemetery in Fromelles, is remembered on both the Morton and Bourne war memorials.