Name
Charles Muir
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
08/04/1916
44
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
G/4783
Royal Sussex Regiment
7th Bn. Formerly 2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
VERMELLES BRITISH CEMETERY
II. N. 30
France
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Bengeo memorials
Pre War
Born in 1875, in Bengeo, to parents Charles and Mary, he had a brother Albert and sister Marion. In 1881 he was living in West Green Road, High Road, Tottenham, with his widowed mother, brother, sister and his aunt, his mother ran a grocers shop. Charles married Maude Annie Roberts in 1907 and in 1911 they were living in Leverson Street, Streatham, they had a daughter Isobel Mary, aged eight months, and he was employed as a police officer in the Metropolitan Police. His wife was living at 79 Besley Street, Streatham at the time of his death and his mother, now Mrs Leatherdale, was at Beamish Road, Lower Edmonton.
Wartime Service
Enlisted in the 2nd Battalion in 1914 but was transferred to the 7th later the same year, landed at Boulogne on 1st June 1915. They took over a section of the line near Pleogsteert Wood which was a relatively quiet sector. Even so the Division suffered over 500 casualties. In September 1915 they took part in the Battle of Loos and by November they had been relieved and had moved to an area near Bethune. They spent the end of the year at the Hohenzollern Redoubt front, where they stayed. This area had become an area where underground mine warfare was very active, with both sides digging and exploding mines. On 2nd March the British exploded two large mines beneath a trench known as the ‘Chord’, the Royal Sussex and the remainder of 36 Brigade attacked after the mines were blown. Severe fighting continued in the area for some weeks and it was in this period that Charles was killed.
Acknowledgments
Terry & Glenis Collins
