Reverend Arthur Carsten Holthouse

The War Memorial unveiled.

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Arthur Carsten Holthouse was born in Westminster, London in July 1857, the third son of Carsten Holthouse, F.R.C.S. (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons)

He attended Victoria College, Jersey and Market Bosworth Grammar School, before entering Cambridge University where he gained a B.A. in 1880 and M.A. in 1897. He was ordained Deacon (Peterborough) in December 1880 and was ordained Priest on December 18th 1881.

Following various moves, he arrived in Benfleet as Vicar in 1914 and remained there until 1920, and in 1916 he married Catherine Suckling Matson, and subsequently became the father of Charles Leonard Matson , who in later years served as the Churchwarden of St. Mary’s, South Benfleet).  A small announcement in the Chelmsford Chronicle on Friday 10th November 1916, reads:

The Reverend A. C. & Mrs. Holthouse have been presented with an engrossed list of 162 subscribers, a silver salver and a cheque in appreciation of the Vicar’s services and as a memento of their wedding.

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The whole of the First World War saw Reverend Holthouse as the Vicar of St. Mary’s Church, and in 1915, Benfleet was asked to look after Belgian war refugees.

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On 30th May, 1920, the War Memorial designed by Sir Charles Nicholson, was unveiled in the square in front of the Anchor and the Church.  The unveiling ceremony started with the choir processing from the Parish Church, singing the hymn ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. The Vicar Reverend Holthouse read the opening lines of the Burial Service, and continued with a tribute to the fallen.

Reverend Holthouse left the Parish of South Benfleet in 1920, and moved to Stamford, Lincolnshire, where he stayed for one year. He died on May 11th 1921, in London, and was buried at Edmonton.

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