Name
Charles Cooper
13/5/1881
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
17/02/1919
39
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
269119
Hertfordshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHARLEROI COMMUNAL CEMETERY
E. 8.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
God's Will Be Done
UK & Other Memorials
Redbourn War Memorial, St Mary's Church Memorial, Redbourn, Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford, Not on the Flamstead memorials
Pre War
Born in 1880 in Flamstead, Herts.
He married Elizabeth Fensome on 3 Oct 1903 in Flamstead and they lived at 31, Fish St., Redbourn, Herts. He had two children and was a farm labourer and horse keeper.
Wartime Service
Charles Cooper was born in Redbourn in 1881, the only child of Mary Ann Cooper.
On the 3rd October 1903 he married Elizabeth Fensome, daughter of Daniel and Elizabeth Fensome, at Flamstead and they went on to have at least two children Charles (b. 1904) and Elizabeth May (b. 1905) both born in Flamstead.
When war broke out he and his family were living at 31 Fish Street, Redbourn and he enlisted, in St Albans, on the 27th January 1915, service number 60960. He joined the 75th Field Company, Royal Engineers, who were then being formed in England, giving his occupation at the time to be Farm Labourer.
After 56 days training, he was discharged on the 22nd March 1915 as being “not likely to become an efficient soldier”. The reasons for this lying in the fact that he was diagnosed with Chronic Gastritis and Gastroptosis.
In October 1915 his wife’s brother, James Fensome, died in East Leeds War Hospital of wounds he had received during the Battle of Loos.
He was called up on the 9th August 1916, aged 36, was passed medical category “A” and joined the 1/1st Battalion the Hertfordshire Regiment, Service number 9033 with whom he went overseas on the 15th December 1916. When Charles joined them they were serving as part of the 118th Brigade, 39th Division.
Charles survived the war and was billeted with his Battalion in Ransart, Belgium when 1919 began. While the men were waiting to be demobilised the army ran for them educational classes as well as opening a recreational room and forming a Battalion Concert Party. Physical drill was carried out daily as well as the occasional route march. Weekly trips were also arranged for officers and men to go to Waterloo and Brussels. In addition, a Battalion Football team took part in a number of matches (although these were hampered by the bad weather) against other local units and by the end of February were top of the Divisional Football League.
Charles, now service number 269119, died of influenza on the 17th February 1919, age 39, at the 20th Casualty Clearing Station based at Charleroi. Influenza was a big killer at this time and the military records for the Charleroi Cemetery show that at least twenty men were buried between the 11th and the 19th February in this cemetery alone. There were Australians, Candians and British burials and while we do not know for certain it seems probable that most if not all of these died of influenza as the war had long since finished.
On the 25th August 1919 Charles’ widow, Elizabeth, was informed that she would receive an army pension of 25 s 5 d a week for herself and her two children.
Charles is buried in plot E 8 at the Charleroi Communal Cemetery in Ransart, Hainaut, Belgium. Situated between Mons and Namur, Charleroi was a scene of some brief fighting in the opening month of the war but after that remained in German hands acting as military and administrative centre. The cemetery contains 308 identified commonwealth casualties of which 270 are from the First World War and 38 from the Second. All the 270 either died as prisoners of war or after the Armistice.
Additional Information
GWC - Photo c.1916
Acknowledgments
Gareth Hughes
Gareth Hughes, Malcolm Lennox, Simon Goodwin, Jonty Wild
