Arthur Francis was a victim of one of the occasional outbreaks of bubonic plague that affected early 20th-century Queensland and resulted in 219 deaths, many of them in Brisbane. Another plague outbreak in 1921 caused 63 deaths, and the last Queensland case was reported in 1922.

Many of the early victims were interred in a special plague burial ground on Gibson Island, in the Brisbane River near Murarrie. This was not far from the isolation hospital on the riverbank at Colmslie. The bodies were wrapped in sheets soaked in carbolic acid, placed in lime-slaked coffins, and then transported on a ‘plague boat’ to the island. They were accompanied only by two warders and a doctor, who was authorised to read the funeral service.