DAVIS Charles

The birth of Charles Davis is registered in The September Quarter 1890 under the Bromsgrove Registration District.

Charles Davis lived in Stoney Hill, Bromsgrove with his parents, Frederick and Mary Davis.  Frederick was a railway labourer but by 1911 had become a gardener.  Charles was the 3rd of 9 children.  Annie, the eldest was a charwoman; Thomas and Charles, aged 19 in 1911, were gardeners; Frederick and Percy worked on the land and then came Henry, Harriet, Arthur and Hilda.

Charles enlisted as a Rifleman (9859) in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 1st Battalion and arrived in France on 20th December, 1914, so he was possibly in the Territorial Army.

Rifleman C. Davies of Bromsgrove, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 9859, appears on the list of missing in the Bromsgrove Weekly Messenger, 7th April 1917.

The following information has been researched by Brian Hill:
On 17th February 1917, when Charles Davis died, the 1st Battalion KRRC took part in an attack near Miraumont, which began at 05.45 across a sea of sticky mud, with good British artillery support but hindered by darkness, mist and German machine gun and rifle fire.  Their first objective was taken and consolidated with 180 German prisoners taken, but further advances by small and scattered parties were beaten back by a vigorous German counter attack which was helped by British rifles and Lewis guns being clogged with mud.  The battalion suffered 190 casualties in this action.

Charles Davis has no known grave, the photograph available shows his name on Thiepval Memorial.