Lives of the First World War

Written as part of the HLF funded Project "Chatteris Remembers" Charles was born in 1893 in Doddington, the 6th child of George and Naomi, who in 1901 were living in Doddington where George was a farm foreman. By 1911 George had died and Naomi had remarried Lewis Harding and the family was living at Mount Pleasant Farm, Chatteris. In 1911 Charles was a farm labourer. Charles joined the 11th Suffolk's and in December/January 1914/15 they moved from Cambridge to Yorkshire in May, then to Salisbury Plain in August. They were posted to France in 8th January 1916, entering the trenches soon after near Armentieres. The battalion was posted to the Somme in readiness for the "Big Push" and Charles was one of the 189 soldiers in the battalion killed on that terrible day. Charles' body was not found and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. Tragically two of his brothers, George and Horace, also died in the war. His step brothers, Walter and Ernest Harding served but survived.

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