Pte 21407 Charles Beamand Fraser

• Age: 28
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Tuesday 11th July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

Pte 21407 Charles Beamand FRASER, 19th Battalion KLR.

Charles Beamand Fraser enlisted in Liverpool on 24th September 1914, giving his age as 26 years 358 days and there is a record of a Charles Fraser being born on 30th September 1887. A Family Tree states that he was the youngest child of William Grant Fraser and his wife Eliza( nee Hunt) but this seems to be incorrect.

William Grant Fraser married Eliza Hunt at St George's Church, Everton on 10th June 1874. 

In late 1886 or early 1887, Eliza died and on 2nd March 1887 William Grant Fraser married another Eliza, Eliza Beamand, at St Matthew’s, Vauxhall Road. On 30th September that year her son Charles Beamand Fraser was born. 

On the 1891 census they live at 13 Hampden Street, Walton. Father, William is once again away at sea, mother Eliza 36, children William A. 16, George 13 a scholar, Florence 10 a scholar b.Walton, and Charles B. 3 b.Walton. Also a visitor Thomas Beamand 44 b.Hyssington.

Charles was educated at Arnot Street School, Walton.

In 1901 they live at 40 Mandeville Street, Walton. Father William 53 a marine engineer b.Scotland, mother Eliza 46 b.Hyssington, Montgomeryshire. Also present are children George 23 a shop steward b.Kirkdale, Florence now 20 b.Kirkdale, Charles B. at school b.Walton 15, Walter Grant aged 9 at school b.Walton, Eliza May aged 7 at school b.Walton, and Ethel Mary aged 5 at school b.Walton.   

His father, William, died on 02nd July 1906 aboard HMS Ivernia. Probate September 1906 to Eliza widow. Effects £355.

In 1911 Charles, now aged 23 and a shipping clerk, is living with his married half sister, Florence, and her husband, together with his three younger siblings Walter Grant Fraser, 19 years, an apprentice engineer; Eliza May, 17 years; and Ethel Mary, 15 years, at his sister’s home at 15 Evered Avenue, Liverpool.  

On 24th September 1914, Charles enlisted in Liverpool, joining the 19th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 21407. 

He went to France with his Battalion on 07th November 1915.

He returned to his Unit on 12th June 1916 and four weeks later was killed at Trones Wood on 11th July 1916.

The murderous fighting that went on inside Trones Wood rendered it impossible to put specific dates on some of the casualties which is why many of the 17^th Battalion losses have been bracketed as killed in action between 10^th – 12th July 1916. The conditions are best described in the following passage from Everard Wyrall’s book The History of The King’s Regiment (Liverpool) Volume II. 

The remembrance of Trones Wood in July 1916 to those who passed through it is of a noisome, horrible place, of a tangled mass of trees and undergrowth which had been tossed and flung about in frightful confusion by the shells of both sides. Of the ghastly dead which lay about in all directions, and of DEATH, lurking in every hole and corner with greedy hands ready to snatch the lives of the unwary. The place was Death trap, and although the attacks were made with great determination,   the presence of snipers who could not be detected and often fired into the backs of our men made the clearing of the wood impossible.

Charles' body was not recovered or was subsequently lost as his name is recorded on Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. 

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916.

On 01st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

His mother died on 28th September 1917 and his relatives are given in late 1917 as his brother, Walter, 27 years; his sisters Eliza, 25 and Ethel, 23; a half brother, Bruce, 45, living in Australia; and a half sister, Florence Burton , 38. Walter, Eliza and Florence live at 9 Fazakerley Road and Ethel in College Drive, Rock Ferry. Charles’s effects are to be sent to Walter Grant Fraser, his younger brother.

Charles’s younger full brother, Walter Grant Fraser, completed a sworn declaration in June 1919 in which he named Charles’s surviving relatives as – himself; his younger sisters Eliza May, aged 23 years; and Ethel Mary, 23 years (Walter and Eliza May were then living at 9 Fazakerley Road while Ethel Mary was at 14 College Road, Rock Ferry); their half-brother, Bruce, said to be living in Australia; and half-sister Florence, also living at 9 Fazakerley Road. Bruce is almost certainly identical with Albert Inglis Bruce Fraser (see above), who married in Victoria, Australia in 1909 and died in Bendigo, Victoria in 1945. Charles earned his three medals which were signed for by Walter in 1920 when he was living at 45 Piercy Road, Seacombe. 

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