Great War bus driver delivers distant claim to English roots
HE HAS often spoken proudly of his Irish roots, including an ancestor from Co Mayo who settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania. But should Joe Biden ever wish to lay claim to British connections, too, he can now cite a Peckham bus driver who served on the Western Front in the First World War.
Arthur Albert Biden, a third cousin twice removed of the new US president, drove lorries with the Army Service Corps during some of the conflict’s fiercest fighting. And while his connection to the White House’s new occupant is somewhat distant, it still added an extra sense of occasion to yesterday’s Remembrance Sunday services for his grandson Ralph, 74, a retired graphic designer who lives in Surrey.
“As far I know, my grandfather drove trucks through the whole of the First World War, all the time at the Western Front,” he said, after observing the twominute silence at his home in Cobham. “As a driver, he wasn’t right on the front lines, but it was still very dangerous as the roads were being shelled and gassed all the time.”
While the new occupant of the White House has frequently spoken of his mother’s Irish roots, Ralph and his great uncle Arthur are part of a distantly related English branch of the family.
The connection comes via Arthur’s great-grandfather James, whose brother William emigrated to the US in the early 19th century, starting what became the American branch of the Biden family.
It is believed that Arthur, who died in 1965 when his great-nephew Joe was in his 20s, did not even know he had any US relatives.
Nonetheless, Arthur’s life story could potentially provide president Biden with some colourful anecdotes should he ever find himself making a speech to a British audience. Born in 1892, Arthur first learnt to drive while working on a country estate, where family legend has it that he drove a Rolls-royce belonging to the estate’s owner. He then went to work as a bus driver in London, operating out of Peckham and Camberwell.
After volunteering for military service in the First World War, one of his early tasks was transporting British troops to Ypres, a task for which the military used London buses painted in khaki colours. “From the sounds of it, it is remarkable that he survived, as he would have gone through shelling, gas attacks, assaults by the German army and so on,” Ralph added.
“Other relatives have told me that conditions on the front line were absolutely disgusting – if you stepped off the road, you went into a sea of mud with bodies floating in it.”
Following the war, Arthur returned to bus driving. Ralph remembers him as a friendly, cheerful grandfather who would often bring coconut cakes from the bus canteen as a treat.
Ralph – a widower and father of two – only learnt of the exact family connections to the US Bidens in recent weeks, after being contacted by a newspaper reporter. Technically, Ralph ranks as a fifth cousin of Joe.
He said: “It doesn’t change things much really – although it’s probably better than being related to Mr Trump.”