This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in April 2005, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.

Lance Sergeant CHARLES WILSHERE

Whilst many of the men on our memorial were little more than young lads, the battlefields of Western Europe had no regard for age. Charles Wilshere was forty when he was killed somewhere on the bloody fields of France.

Gathering together the story of Charles Wilshere was more difficult than with many of the Pirton victims of the 1st World War. Firstly, there is confusion over the surname spelling, variously Wilshere, Wilsher. Secondly, Charles unlike many of the other Pirton men seemed to lose his main ties with the village. The expansion of building and other industry in the final years of Victoria’s reign caused Charles, like so many young men, to move to London. Employment in Pirton was meagre, for even the opportunity to be a poorly paid agricultural worker was withering with the appearance of more machinery.

Whilst distance-travel was relatively slight among the poorer people in much of Victoria’s reign, there was always local movement between Pirton and surrounding villages and on 7th December 1873 James Wilshere born in Lilley married Sarah Larman, who had been born and bred in Pirton. We know that In 1871 Sarah, aged 19, had been a straw plaiter living with her brother in law, Joseph Chamberlain and his wife, Mary, in Wet Lane. Sarah and James settled in Pirton and over the next sixteen years they had six children – Martha (born in 1875), Charles (1878), Frederick (1882), Robert (1885), Arthur (1887) and Bertram (Bertie) (1890).

It is the progress of their second child, Charles, we now follow. He was baptised in St. Mary’s on 6th October 1878. The family, like most in the village, were poor and the family moved around in Pirton to wherever accommodation could be found; often dependent upon the farmer with whom James could find work. Over the next few years they lived variously ‘near the pond’, ‘downtown’ and ‘Wet Lane’. Each of these addresses is shown on the school register as the home of one Wilshere child or another when admitted to Pirton School. Charles started at the school when he was three, when the school was only in its fourth year. Children of the brothers of Charles’ father also attended the school and over the next few years Wilsher(e)s appear frequently on the school roll.

By the time Charles left the school, the family was almost certainly living in Wet Lane, (now West Lane) - probably one of the five cottages near Helen and Andy Hofton’s home (opposite end of Royal Oak Lane,. The cottages were burnt down in the first part of last century. Charles, almost certainly joined the ranks of the many agricultural labourers, but realised that to gain more permanent and better paid labouring, he had to move away from the village.

In the late 1890’s there had became quite an ‘ex-Pirton stronghold’ in north London. The attraction was generated by employment, mainly as ‘gangers’ on the LNER, based on Finsbury Park. The line from Hitchin was direct and an increasing number of Pirton men worked and stayed in north London from Monday to Saturday lunchtime, returning to the village for the rest of the at weekend. Some of these men moved to other forms of labouring and building in that rapidly expanding part of the capital.

It was to another branch of his Pirton relatives that Charles became closely linked. In 1894 Clara and Thomas Walker (Clara was a sister of Charles’ mother) who were probably living with the extended family running the ‘Shoulder of Mutton’ pub in Hambridge Way ( later burnt down), moved to North London. By 1901 they were living at 169 Cornelia Street in the Lower Holloway region of Islington. By 1901 Charles Wilshere, now 23, was boarding with his aunt and uncle as was Frederick Goldsmith formerly from Little Green. Charles and Frederick were then ‘general labourers’.

Charles’ life over the next decade remains unknown, but more will be revealed when 1911 census details come out in six years time! He seems to have continued living and working in North London. There is no detail that he married. During this first decade of the new century the clouds of an oncoming war gathered. By 1915, posters informing every passer-by that ‘Your Country Need You’ were abundant. On 18th May of that year the 21st Battalion Middlesex regiment was formed by the Mayor and Borough of Islington. This may be when Charles joined up; certainly he enlisted in Holloway.

Sadly, so many service records of these war years were destroyed by bombing in the Second World War. By 1915, Charles was 37 and he was soon promoted to Corporal. Also fighting for their King and Country were Charles’ younger brothers, Frederick, Arthur and Bert(ram). This was the period of the war when almost every home in Pirton was affected by telegrams carrying news of a death or letters bearing love to wife, sweethearts and friends.

Sometime later, probably in 1916, three of the brothers were back in England – all with war injuries. Charles was on hospital leave recovering from wounds, Frederick was awaiting discharge after a leg was amputated and Albert had also injured. At this time, Bert remained at The Front.

Charles recovered, at least physically, and returned to this ‘war to end all wars’. He was now Lance Sergeant Charles Wilshere G/15042. By March 1918 the Western Front ran from Ypres southwards to St. Quentin and beyond. Details of individuals’ whereabouts in this long line are not known. However, we do know that on 21st March exceptionally heavy German shellfire hit many areas of British front with the main weight of attack between Arras and a few miles south of Saint-Quentin. British losses were particularly heavy during the next few days.

 In whichever part of The Front Charles was fighting, on 24th March 1918 he was killed. The circumstances of his death are not known, but there were many in Pirton and North London who grieved at yet another war-time death. The village’s suffering seemed to be never-ending, for yet more were to die in the remaining eight months of the war. Charles is commemorated on the Arras Memorial at Pas de Calais in France (Bay 7).

Many family connections with Charles remain, some in Pirton:

Maureen Worsley who lives in Davis Crescent. Is the granddaughter of Bertram Wilsher, the brother of Charles.
Pat Pickering, who lives in Holwell Road is the daughter of Bertram Wilsher.
Pete Wilshere who lives at the bottom of Priors Hill is the grandson of Arthur Wilshere.

Barbara Wilshere who lives in Hitchin and is a sister of Brenda Dawson, is the daughter in law of Arthur Wilshere
Some family connections are complicated, and not just by spelling variations. First cousins sometimes married in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, both descending from the same family. Family trees are not easy to construct.

Pat Trafford, who now lives in Maidstone and gave much information about Charles is his great-niece .Charles’ sister Martha (Pat Trafford’s grandmother) married first cousin Abraham John Willsher, also from Pirton, after he returned from the Boer War. They moved to 31 Evershot Rd, Finsbury Park. They raised a daughter & three sons. All died of TB including their wives. The young wives who died were the mothers of Pat Trafford and Colin Willsher, both of whom verify much of the family detail in this article.

Pirton Monumental inscription relate to brothers of Charles:

Points of contact are:
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