| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Private Charles Barnes of the 1st Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment was killed in action on 9 Apr 1917 in the 1st Battle of the Scarpe, the first action in the Battle of Arras in France. The objective on the day were the fortified German trenches on higher ground to the east of the city of Arras, part of the newly constructed Hindenburg defensive line. The 1st waited all day in snow and freezing conditions only 700 yards from their German counterparts. They advanced at 3.50pm and did take the first trench but they were then effectively trapped on three sides by the Germans between the first and second trenches and bombarded heavily. They resisted until the next day before withdrawing. Charles was killed on the first day. He is buried at Cojeul British Cemetery, St Martin-sur-Cojeul in France. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Charles was born in Nottingham in 1888. His family moved to Beverley in the later 1890s and lived in Minster Moorgate. Charles father, William, was a baker and confectioner who married Mary in 1881. Charles had an older brother, William Henry and three younger sisters Edith Annie and Elsie, born in Beverley. Charles worked at Ackrill's Gunmakers in Saturday Market. The 1911 census describes him being a cycle repairer but his army service records also note that he was a gunsmith.
He married Clarice Eugenia Hyde of Ellerker on 1 Jun 1914 at Brantingham and Ellerker Church, Clarice was born in Lockington and worked as a domestic servant. They lived at 2 Sloe Lane in Beverley and had two children Winifred Mary born on 24 Feb 1915 and Charles Robert born on 30 Nov 1916. By this time Charles was in the army having enlisted in Beverley in May. He arrived in France on 12 Dec 1916. After the war his family were to receive a war pension of 22 shillings 11 pence per week. Clarice did not remarry and but later lived near South Cave with Robert who had become an aircraft engineer. She moved from Beverley to her parents house in Ellerker when Charles enlisted in 1916.
Charles is remembered today on the Hengate War Memorial and on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster. His elder brother, William served as a Lance-Corporal in the Northumberland Fusiliers during the war.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |