The grave of Charles Ellerton at Ecoivres Cemetery. Photographed for ‘Marching in Memory’ for Combat Stress, July 2015
Today we remember …
| 19th May 1916. Charles Ellerton. Don. Capt, 10th Bn, Cheshire Regt. Killed in action during preparations for the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Charles Ellerton was born in Cheshire in 1884. He was a Scholar of Jesus College, Oxford, who came to teach at Radley early in 1914. He signed up almost immediately war broke out in 1914.Extract from a letter received from an Officer at the Front re Captain C. F. Ellerton: ‘He died at the head of a party of his company charging the enemy. It was an act of unnecessary bravery, as it was only a small party and he might have detailed it to a subaltern. I was told by a witness that he saved the life of one boy who was going to be bayoneted, by rushing in front and throwing a bomb at the Germans. He was at first badly wounded and refused to be carried away, ordering the stretcher bearers to save themselves. Immediately afterwards he was killed.’‘I saw his grave this afternoon. He is buried in the little cemetery in the wood at Mount St. Eloi. He was just reported missing, because it was not until the next night that it was possible to recover his body.’ The schoolboys he taught at Radley remembered him as ‘Though only here for a comparatively short time he made his influence felt in many ways here – on the “Rugger-field,” in “school,” and with the “recruits,” and there are many to whom the news of his death came as a real grief.’ Aged 32 |
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Radley College Archives 