Name
Charles Lewis England
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
27/04/1915
23
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
2637
East Surrey Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 34.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Abbots Langley Village Memorial, St. Lawrence Church Memorial, Abbots Langley, Not on the Bushey memorials
Pre War
Son of David England, of 64, Adrian Road, Abbots Langley, Herts., and the late Ellen England. Born Bushey, enlisted in Watford.
Biography
Although Charles England was killed in action on 27th April 1915, his untimely death was not reported in the Parish Magazine until June that year. Charles enlisted at Watford, where he was living at the time of the outbreak of War. He arrived in Flanders on 24th March 1915, and joined the 2nd East Surrey’s in the area to the north-east of Ypres. The battalion was in trenches near Zonnebeke, when on 22nd April the Germans released a new weapon – chlorine gas. Throughout the following days the battalion was subject to a series of attacks on their trenches and suffered severely as a result of a new gas attack on 25th April. In the few short weeks since the battalion had arrived in France over 800 of the original 1000 men had been killed, wounded or were missing.
Vicar Parnell commented in the June 1915 Parish Magazine
“Charles England, of the 4th East Surrey Regt (sic), was killed in action at Hill 60 (sic) on April 27th. He was very closely and intimately connected with our Church, as a keen member of the C.E.M.S (Church of England Missionary Society), and a regular communicant from the time of his Confirmation. He gave up his home and civil life and made ‘the great surrender’ and was prepared to give up all even to his bright, young, vigorous, happy life for the liberty and honour of his country, and we are sure that in losing his life he has found it. His relatives and friends may be assured that he has the real and true sympathy of all in the Parish”.
Research has confirmed that Charles was serving with the 2nd Battalion of the East Surrey’s at the time of his death, and that he died in the Zonnebeke area, and not at Hill 60, which had been the scene of a brave defence by the 1st East Surrey’s at the same time, where 2nd Lieutenant George Woolley (former student at Parmiters School) was awarded the VC in this action..
Charles was born in 1892 at Clay Hill in Bushey, one of four sons, and five sisters of David and the late Ellen England. The family lived at 64 Adrian Road, and both Charles and his father David were Gardner Domestics. His elder brother Walter was a full time soldier who served with the 1st Bedfordshire’s throughout the War. His younger brother, Harold, volunteered in 1915, and after spending a short time in France in February 1917 with the Machine Gun Corps, moved to Palestine and from there to India and the NW Frontier.
Charles England was commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium, and on the Abbots Langley War Memorial.
Additional Information
Discharged Unfit for Military Service
Acknowledgments
Roger Yapp - www.backtothefront.org
