| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Charlie Sharp was born in Beverley the 30 Dec 1895. He was baptised at St Mary’s, Beverley the 29 Jan 1896, the son of Charles Henry Sharp, senior and Emma (nee Freebury). Charlie’s father, died in Mar 1897. By 1911 Charlie was an apprentice plasterer, living with his uncle, Arthur Freebury, a blacksmith at 5 Wilbert Terrace. His mother remarried in Jun 1912. Her new husband was George Darley Taylor, was a GPO telephone repairer and lineman, originally from Bridlington. The couple had one son, Darley Taylor, born on 29 Mar 1913.
Charlie served as a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery. He had enlisted early in the war and probably arrived in France at the end of Aug 1915, for which he would be awarded the 1914-15 Star in addition to the War and Victory Medals.
Charlie’s life after WW1 is shrouded in some mystery. He features on the Electoral Register of 1918 as being a resident of Beverley living with his mother and stepfather at 54 Norwood but thereafter there is no record of him in Beverley. It is entirely possible that he was Gunner Charles Henry Sharp of the RFA who re-enlisted for four years of peacetime service with them in 1921.The papers of Gunner 47931 indicate that he had married Lilian Ethel Jeffrey, born in the Brighton area in 1894, and a domestic servant, on 19 Mar 1918. They had an only child, Eric Charles, on 16 May 1921 and lived in Brighton. When he left the RFA in 1925 the family moved to Ottringham, near Withernsea, but then returned to the Brighton area. His wife was recorded as a widow in the 1939 Register but there is no date for his death. He was a carpenter’s mate.
Charlie is remembered on the Norwood Street Shrine in Beverley but as “C.H.Sharpe”.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |