This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in May 2004, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.

CHARLES BURTON

By the late autumn of 1916 the news that eight Pirton men had been killed in the War, some little more than boys, cast a cloud of great sadness and anxiety over the closely-knit community of Pirton. Virtually every household knew at least one of the victims personally.

How different the village had been less than twenty years earlier in the tranquil days when Edward Charles Burton was born. His mother Ellen Burton, born in 1874, was a daughter of the wonderfully named Goliath Burton and his first wife Mary-Ann. Ellen's husband-to-be, George Pearce, was probably from a poorer family, but however hard life might have been, only the peaceful days of Victoria's England were known. The families of Ellen and George were well established in the village.

When they met, Ellen was living with her parents in what is now Crabtree House and George lived up The Baulk in a cottage which later burnt down. Ellen went to the village school and proved a good scholar, but George never had the opportunity to read nor write. At the age of seven he was already working on the land, scaring birds off the nearby fields.

So, just before the turn of the century they married at Woolwich. ‘I don't know why they got married there', their youngest and only surviving daughter Phyllis Pearce said last week, 'but I've got their wedding certificate to show just that'. Once married, they moved to a cottage just off High Street, now part of 69 High Street (actually in Cromwell Way); subsequently moving to the end cottage in Holwell Road (now no. 24).

From an early age Edward Charles, the first-born in this family, was known as Charlie. As the years moved into the 20th century the family rapidly grew: Francis Jon (Jack) Frederick, Lillian, Stanley Goliath, Laurence and finally Phyllis who was born in 1913. All the children born after Charles bore the surname Pearce.

George was a stockman at High Down Farm but it seems possible that in the years following Charles' birth, he may have taken temporary job outside the parish, for the family does not appear on the 1901 census. Charles was born, and continued to live at his grandparents' house. Charles referred to 'my home' as that of grandfather Goliath.

Like all his Pirton friends, Charles went to the village school. When he left school, around 1910, he probably helped on his grandfather's substantial smallholding (the area now encompassing St. Mary's Close and the Village Hall). Only a few years later he, like so many of his former school friends, answered the call of 'King and Country'. Probably earlier than his age demanded, Charles took the journey to Bedford where he enlisted. So, in 1915 or early 1916 he became Private E C Burton, 28050, of the 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment. During these years, Pirton must have seen many men in uniform some, like Charles, never to live long enough to see peace return to the village.

We know very little about Charles' wartime life. Much is known of the fighting Pirton men from the wartime scrapbook found in the village, but if there were articles in the local paper of Charles' experiences or subsequent death the cuttings have not emerged. It is fortunate that his youngest sister, now 90-year old Phyllis Pierce of Danefield Road, can tell of us the family situation although she was only three when her brother died and so has no memories of him when he was alive.

Sometime in 1916, Charles made the journey across the Channel; a short distance but one to a truly different world. War had long been raging along the Western Front, tragically, but with no real consequence, other than the deaths of so many young men from many countries. Just south of the war-torn road between the Arras to Doullens Road lay many villages, one of which was Berles. For the first year of the War, the area was held by the French, but in 1915 it passed to their British allies, with whom it remained until the end of the War.

The casualty list throughout this whole area of Europe seemed never ending. In the autumn of 1916 the Verdun offensive alone had seen 700,000 causalities on the two sides; on the Somme 650,000 allied casualties. In most places the front-lines had hardly changed. The Times' newspaper record 1916 as ‘the bleakest Christmas yet' It was a Christmas that Charles was never to enjoy. In fact Charles had been born on Christmas Day. On 21st December 1916 he was killed. He was probably 18. If the tragic news got back to Pirton quickly it must have been a joyless Christmas for Ellen, George and the family in Holwell Road cottage. The year's most popular song, ‘Take me back to dear old Blighty' must have had a bitter ring to the Burton and Pearce families.

From his sister Phyllis we learn that his parents, Ellen and George, thought that their eldest son had never had a burial place; that nowhere marked the death of Charles. In fact, it was learned much more recently that he was buried at Berles Position Military Cemetery (Ref B1). Charles' final resting place is also known as the 'ravine cemetery', for it lies in a dip in that part of northern France. Over 50 graves mark this cemetery in this quiet countryside which lies some fifteen kilometres south of Arras.

Last week Phyllis again took out the beautiful, yet so emotive, photograph of her brother's grave. Quite recently her cousins, Rita and Jack Pearce, visited this cemetery, so wonderfully maintained by the War Graves Commission and came back with the photograph. Along with our own village War Memorial, the grave records the courage and death of another Pirton man.

Charles parents are burled in St. Mary's churchyard; George died in 1944 aged 71 and Ellen in 1949 aged 75. Tragically, the loss of their eldest son Charles was not the end of their wartime grief. Less than two years later another son, Jack, was to become another name to be recorded on our War Memorial

A little more information has been supplied by Kim Whitaker in the form of this extract from the 'Hertfordshire Express' dated 8th January 1917. Charlie Burton had been killed on 21st December 1916.

*** For help with this article we thank: Phyllis Pearce, Clare Baines, Rita & Jack Pearce, Peter Stainthorpe, Denise Marshall, Lynda Smith www.roll-of-honour.com, Rita Chambers, Helen Hofton, Jonty Wild, Helen Hofton and Kim Whitaker.

Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk

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