Ingham, Charles Rowland

BORN LEEDS 1887. RESIDED HULL. ORIGINAL HULL PAL. KIA. ARMY ADDRESS ABOVE. LEFT £142 TO HANNAH INGHAM. LISTED ON THE WILSON LINE CRICKET & ATHLETIC CLUB’S ROH. NOTE: WILLIAM INGHAM, 1 BARTON TER, MANCHESTER ST; KIA. ARMY ADDRESS ABOVE.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE CHARLES ROWLAND INGHAM 14/187. Born in 1887 in Leeds, Charles was the youngest of six children to Stephen and Emma Ingham. Both parents died young and Charles spent many years living with his brothers, first in Leeds where he worked as a Clerk in a Corn Mill, and then in Hull where he resided at 5 Brookside Villas off Grange Street. He attested at City Hall on 3rd January 1916 originally in the 14th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment before being transferred to the 11th after arriving in France on 16th April 1916. Charles perfectly embodies the state of the remaining manpower in Britain. When he arrived in the Spring of 1916 volunteer numbers had dropped right off and the Conscription Law was in full swing, the army was therefore filling with men either previously deemed unfit for service or unwilling to join up for one reason or another. The willing and able were about to be sacrificed on the Somme in such numbers that the entire character of the British Army changed in a few short months from fit and able to sickly, stunted and less keen. Charles was taken out of the line with anaemia for a spell then returned only to be struck down with influenza which sidelined him for several months. He returned on 21st April 1917 and a fortnight later he was dead, killed in action as the Pals attacked Oppy Wood on 3rd May 1917; his body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was 30 years old.