Charles John Smith Private DM2/163781 - Army Service Corps Died of wounds on Thursday 17th October 1918 age 23 Buried in Tourgeville Cemetery. Calvados, France Charles   John   Smith    was   born   in   1895   in   Gnosall   to   28-year-old   coal   merchant   Herbert Isaac   Smith,   a   Gnosall   man,   &   his   wife   Jessie   nee   Williams,   who   was   29   and   also   from Gnosall. Charles was baptised in Gnosall on 11 th  August 1895. Herbert Smith had been a coal dealer or merchant since at least 1892 (he and Jessie had married in 1889), and by 1900 he was also running the Anchor public house on Audmore Road. The 1901 census shows Herbert as a publican at the Audmore end of the High Street, with his wife, two daughters Mabel and Alice, and four sons, Sam Vernon, Charles John, Frank Morrey and Albert Edward. We know from his army records that Charles suffered from asthma, so it seems likely that he was the Charles Smith shown in the 1911 census as a 15-year-old farm labourer from Gnosall at Stafford General Infirmary, Foregate Street. Jessie Smith had died, possibly as early as June 1901, and in 1911 the widowed Herbert Isaac Smith was at in a boarding house at 34 Mill Bank, Stafford, working as a carpenter & builder. The only family member with him was 10-year-old Albert Edward who was at school. When   Charles   enlisted   in   the   Royal   Army   Service   Corps   aged   20   in   1916   he   was   5’   7”   and working   as   a   “fitter   learner”   with   Mr   Hawkins,   Brick   Kiln   Lane,   Brocton,   Stafford.   His   father had moved to 29 Regent Street, Wellington. Charles’s service records are available online. He was classified as an artificer (repairing weaponry), worked as a caterpillar driver and fitter, was temporarily acting (lance-) corporal (unpaid) and was hospitalised several times (asthma). He was present at the 498 th  Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, and died on 17 th   October 1918 at “74 General Hospital, France” of lobar pneumonia following wounds received in action. A scrawled telegraph about his death is also online. He was awarded the Victory and British medals. Charles is buried at Tourgeville Cemetery, Calvados, France, IV. D. 14 “Thy will be done”, Mr Herbert J Smith, 37, Urban Gardens, Wellington, Salop “Son of Herbert Isaac and Jessie Smith, of 37, Urban Gardens, Wellington, Salop. Native of Audmore, Staffs.”

Tourgeville Cemetery Historical Information The 14th Convalescent Depot was at Trouville in October 1917 and the Trouville Hospital Area - which later comprised the 72nd, 73rd and 74th General Hospitals, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Convalescent Depots - was established in February 1918. Tourgeville Military Cemetery contains 210 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 13 from the Second World War. There are also 90 German graves and two non war burials. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield Tourgeville is a commune adjoining the town of Deauville, which is located on the coast at the mout of the River Touques, just south of Le Havre. The Military Cemetery is situated north of the village of Tourgeville, in the region of Mont Canisy in a small side road.