| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Charles Elvidge was born on 15 Nov 1891 in Aldershot and baptised at All Saints church, Aldershot on 16 Sep 1892. He was the oldest son of Thomas Elvidge and Kate Roper and one of six children.
Before the war Charles worked as a stoker on a traction engine for East Riding County Council. On 4 May 1913 he married Elsie May Etherington, born 1890, at St Nicholas’ Church, Beverley. Elsie was the daughter of a gardener. They lived in the vicinity of Church Holme Lane and had two children, Gladys born 1913 and Charles born 1921. After Elsie’s death, Charles rmarried Gladys Verity at Beverley Minster on 15 April 1933. Gladys Verity, was born 1900 and lived in Mill Lane, they had two children. The family lived in Sparkmill Terrace and later Denton Street. Charles was employed as a housepainter.
Charles served as a trooper/private in the East Riding Yeomanry, probably enlisting in late 1915 and after training going out to Egypt for the Palestine Campaign against the Turks in late spring 1917. After the defeat of Turkish forces in autumn 1917, and with severe manpower shortages on the Western Front, many members of the 1/1st of the Yeomanry were reassigned to a different role in the Machine Gun Corps, in France, probably in the 108th Battalion. Charles would have been involved in the retreats in the first half of 1918 and then the 100 Day Advance in the second half of the year, leading to the November Armistice. Charles was wounded on 27 Oct, sufficiently seriously to be repatriated to the UK and to hospital in Leamington Spa. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Charles died in Hull in 1975. Gladys died in 1981.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |