Private Charles Walter Sulsh

Charles was born in Battersea on 26 December 1896. He was the eldest of five children with younger siblings John Thomas (known as Thomas), Doris Sarah (known as Sarah), John Francis and Florence. Another child died in infancy.
Charles was baptised at St John’s Church Battersea on 14 March 1897. The family lived at 34 Sewell Road and were still at that address by the time of the 1901 census but had moved to 32 Manor Road, Mitcham by the 1911 census.
In 1911, Charles was shown as being a “Magazine Boy” on the census, but he was later trained by his father, also Charles, as a stonemason.
Charles’s service records are available and show that he enlisted on 11 August 1914 at Kingston on Thames. Aged 19, he was 5ft 8inches tall with brown hair and eyes and gave his mother Amelia as his next of kin. He joined the Buffs (East Kent) Regiment and his conduct records indicate that he was confined to Barracks on a number of occasions for offences ranging from using obscene language to the NCO, failing to take proper care of his rifle and being absent for short periods of time without permission. However, the last offence shown “Quitting the vicinity of the Military Hospital at Devonport without permission” was in December 1915 and there appear to have been no further issues.
He was sent to France with the Expeditionary Force in 1915 and was wounded in the shoulder on 22 May 1916 which resulted in him being sent back to England until 3 October 1916.
Charles was killed in action on 3 May 1917 on a day of heavy fighting for the Buffs and his name appears on the Arras Memorial and in St Mark’s Church, Mitcham.