Charles Stuart Bothwell
Rank: Sapper
Regiment: 255th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers
Parents: Mr Charles Joseph & Mary Ellen Bothwell
Address: 20 Silverlands Road, St Leonards
Other Info: An article published in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer on 29th June 1918 reads; “Died of wounds in France on May 31st 1918”.
According to CWGC, Charles died aged 22 and is remembered at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, grave reference XXVIII.F.6.
Published: June 1918
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Charles Stuart Bothwell was born in Kingston upon Thames in 1896. In the 1911 census the family were at 6 St Mary's Terrace, Battle. His father was an upholsterer, born Camden Town, while his mother was from Suffolk.
The Hastings Observer, 15 June 1918, has a short obituary. He was the eldest son and enlisted in September 1914, going to France in early 1915. He was severely wounded on the 31st May and died the same day of his wounds. Their other son (one had presumably died young) had recently been discharged from the army after "considerable service". This was Horace Edgar Bothwell, two years younger. He too had enlisted in the Royal Engineers in September 1914, and was discharged in December 1917 because of sickness, receiving the Silver Badge to indicate that he had served but was unable to continue doing so. He died at 30 Wellington Road, Hastings, in 1968.
This man's father, of 20 Silverlands Road, died in 1929 at the nearby Buchanan Hospital, St Leonards on Sea. A brief obituary in the Hastings Observer, 26 October 1929, says that the family moved from Battle 17 years ago. He left a widow, a son living abroad, and two daughters, and was a Congregationalist. Horace had in June 1929 sailed to Quebec as a mechanic, hence the living abroad remark.
Thank you for this information Stephen. Regards, Kieron