WWI Memorial Plaque - KIA on the Somme

WWI Memorial Plaque - KIA on the Somme - Victory Medal (163357 PTE. A.G. HAMLIN. 76-CAN.INF.); and Memorial Plaque (ARTHUR GRANT HAMLIN). Naming is officially impressed on the VM. Extremely fine. Accompanied by the cardboard shipping container lid face for the VM and an original Toronto Evening Telegram Newspaper Broadsheet Page (pages 15 and 16, dated Thursday, November 9, 1916, with Hamlin's death notice). Footnote: Arthur Grant Hamlin was born on December 26, 1886 in Campbellford, Ontario. He had a brother, which he lived with in Toronto before he enlisted and two married sisters, one in Toronto, the other in Buffalo. He was employed as a Shipper by the Curtis Publishing Company of Toronto and was widely travelled in Canada and the United States. He signed his Attestation Paper on July 28, 1915 with the 84th Infantry Battalion, naming his next-of-kin as William G. Hamiln, stating that he had no previous military service, that he was not married and that his trade was that of Shipper. The Battalion was raised and mobilized in Toronto, Ontario under the authority of G.O. 103A, August 15, 1915 and left Canada on June 18, 1916 with a strength of 36 officers and 913 other ranks under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel W.D. Stewart. Once in England, the Battalion was was broken up and absorbed into the 73rd and 75 Infantry Battalions, with Hamlin absorbed by the 75th Infantry Battalion. He served in both Belgium and France and was at the front since June 1916, having been transferred to the 76th Infantry Battalion. His last letter to his brother in Toronto described where he was in France, presumably the Somme: "It was like Hades with (the) lid off". He was with the 76th Battalion when he was Killed in Action on October 25, 1916 at the Somme, at the age of 29. Hamlin is buried in Adanac Military Cemetery, Somme, France, Grave Reference: I.A.25.