POCKETT, Arthur Herbert
| Service Number: | 2931 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 13 May 1915, Melbourne, Victoria |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 38th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Malvern, Victoria, 1898 |
| Home Town: | Kew, Boroondara, Victoria |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Gardener |
| Died: | Natural Causes, Brighton, Victoria, 9 November 1977 |
| Cemetery: | Not yet discovered |
| Memorials: |
World War 1 Service
| 13 May 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Melbourne, Victoria | |
|---|---|---|
| 16 Dec 1916: | Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 2931, 38th Infantry Battalion | |
| 16 Dec 1916: | Embarked AIF WW1, Private, 2931, 38th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Medic, Melbourne | |
| 20 Jun 1918: | Discharged AIF WW1 |
Pte. Arthur Herbert Pockett
Arthur Herbert Pockett had a brother and a sister. The brother was George Norman Pockett. The sister was May Louise Pockett. May Louise Pockett married Leslie Clarence Byrne, and they were my maternal grandparents.
I remember my great uncle Arthur with fondness. He was very popular with the children of the family. My recollections of him closely match the biography included in the RSL Virtual War Memorial. I remember how pleased everyone was when he and Jean married, and the terrible despair when, after, so short a time, Jean left him.
Jean Pockett disappeared from Melbourne and no one knew her whereabouts. Anzac Day preparations in 2015 revealed that Jean Pockett was still alive and selected as a WW1 war widow to travel to Gallipoli. Jean Pockett's story of how she nursed Arthur until his death. differs greatly from the truth.
The car that Arthur drove was a specially modified vehicle. It was modified by his brother George Norman Pockett, who had become an automotive engineer. The WW1 history and postwar history of George Norman Pockett is worth researching.
John L C Edge.
Submitted 9 May 2015 by John Edge
Biography
Returned from France with two legs amputated. He married Amy Beryl Don. Had a very happy marriage until Beryl's death from cancer in 1944. He was a wonderful man and nothing was beyond him. He climbed ladders and painted his own home in Edithvale, mowed lawns and had a beautiful garden. He drove his own car also. He re-married in 1947, during the marriage he was operated on in the repatriation hospital to separate the nerves in his brain connected to his legs to attempt to take away the pain he had always suffered from. From there the repat placed him in a private nursing home run by a Mrs Marie Meredith who nursed him until his death in 1978. His second wife Jean divorced him in the early 50's while still in the nursing home.
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