Lives of the First World War

A day before he was to marry, a deeply depressed Arthur Joseph Best decided he could not go on. The discharged soldier had returned from World World I burdened with after-effects of gunshot wounds to his head and forearm which he received at Gallipoli in August 1915. The injured Best spent a year in hospital in Britain before returning to New Zealand in March 1917. His brother Harold remarked that Arthur's "vacancy and despondency" worried him. "He wanted to be by himself all the time," Harold Best said, adding that Arthur's depression lasted for six months. The strapping returned soldier and former Manawatu rugby rep - he was 1.88m and weighed 95kg - then seemed to rally. Three years after he resettled, Best, 35, bought a farm at Ashhurst outside Palmerston North and announced plans to marry. The day before he was to tie the knot he killed himself at Harold's home. The coroner ruled that Arthur Best's severe depression, caused by his Gallipoli head wounds, was "not unconnected with his sudden rash act".

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