THIS week we remember Charles Frederick Newman, a private with the 1st/20th battalion of the London Regiment who was killed in action 100 years ago on October 1, 1916.
Charles was just 19 years-old when he died fighting in the last major offensive by the British Army in the Battle of the Somme.
He took part in the Battle of Le Transloy, which started on October 1, a combined Anglo-French assault on the German line which take place in the late afternoon following a day-long bombardment.
The London Regiment attacked with tanks sweeping through Eaucourt.
However the tanks got bogged down and despite initial success, any follow up attacks were foiled as the weather deteriorated.
Charles was born at Callow Hill and was named after his father, a farm labourer. His mother was Myra Newman and he was one of four children who survived infancy, the family living on Callow Hill Road in Hunt End. By the age of 14 he was working as a milk seller.
He has no known grave but is remembered on a number of war memorials, including the Thiepval memorial and St John the Baptist Church in Feckenham.
Another Redditch-born soldier, George Henry Houghton, died fighting with the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) on October 4, 100 years ago.
He was born in 1874 to Henry and Sarah Houghton and in 1881 who lived at 16 Windsor Street.
He married Elizabeth Webb and the couple emigrated to Canada with their ten children in 1912, finding a home in Brownton, Ontario, where he worked as a stone cutter. He joined up on August 24, 1915.
It’s not known how Pte Houghton died but the regimental diary of the RCR records that on the day enemy artillery and snipers were ‘quite active’.
Pte Houghton is buried at the Vimy memorial in France, which is dedicated to Canadian soldiers who died in the First World War, and is remembered on the St Stephens War Memorial.
With thanks to Remembering Redditch’s Fallen Heroes, Philip Jarvis, and the Diaries of the Royal Canadian Regiment.
