A “FORGOTTEN” soldier from the First World War has been honoured with a rededication of his grave.

Arthur Thompson Flesher survived the fighting in France but lost his life to influenza and acute pneumonia just six days before the end of the war. He was just 20 when he died in a war hospital and was buried at Yeadon Cemetery.

Now Horsforth-based Yarnbury Rugby Club has commemorated the centenary of his death in a ceremony attended by councillors, military representatives, club members and the volunteers who carried out research into the players who died.

A club spokesman said: “Yarnbury lost 14 members of their club as Leeds Yarnbury RFC in the First World War all but one buried in foreign fields never to return home.The club were based in Headingley at the time and one soldier named Private Arthur Thompson Flesher was buried in Yeadon Cemetery.”

The soldier, with no living relatives, had been forgotten but his grave was found by Yarnbury members and it was refurbished, cleaned and repaired.

Eight years ago a search was launched to find out about the former players who lost their lives.

Arthur, a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps, latterly attached to the Royal Fusiliers, is the only Yarnbury RFC player to be buried ‘at home’.

He had joined up in 1916 and went to fight in France in March 1917. He was hospitalised for almost four months after being shot in November 1917. He was injured again in June 1918 whilst stationed in Blackpool and it was here that he contracted influenza in the epidemic that was sweeping the country.

His grave and Commonwealth War headstone stands within a family plot in Yeadon cemetery which include the graves of his father Christopher, mother Emma and sister Eileen. His brother Edward who also served, was wounded, and survived the conflict. During the war the family lived at 4, Carlton Mount, Yeadon.

Last year the club launched an appeal to find relatives of the dead private so that permission could be given for his grave to be tended.

In its appeal the club said: “Yarnbury RFC members have visited the graves and memorials of all the other players in France and Belgium and regularly put poppies and pennants on Arthur Flesher’s grave. The family plot is not in a good state and Yarnbury RFC would like to have the kerbstones cleaned and the plot neatened up, to honour one of their own.”