Born Hull, 24th October, 1899. Son of Clara Furze, of Toronto, Ontario. He stated being born in 1895, in Leeds, England, but the 1901 British census and a Canadian customs document recording his immigration in 1911 prove that he was born in 1899. In 1901, he was residing with his mother and his grandparents, Charles Furze and Isabella Wade at 4 Promenade Place, Vane Street, Hull and 173, Arthur Street, Hull (Canadian war records address). After Isabelle passed in 1910, the three departed for Canada. All this to show that he fooled the system and was able to enlist at 15 years old. He enlisted on 26th July, 1915, at Toronto, Ontario, joining the 83rd (Queen’s Own Rifles). He left for England at the end of September 1915.
As a Private, he arrived in Belgium on 5th February 1916 and was taken on strength with the 22nd Battalion. He joined them on February 16, but given that the 22nd Battalion was a Francophone unit, he was transferred soon after, on 3rd March, to the 24th Battalion, a unit from the same brigade, but largely Anglophone. He had been wounded in the ankle and worked as a Machine Gunner. He was killed in action, at Courcelette, on 29/09/1916, aged 16. He had written to parents, just nine days before his death and was sending them a captured Prussian helmet.
After his son’s death, Clara, his mother, married to Frederick-James Clarke in 1918 and returned soon after to England where she died in 1922.
