Stuart, Charles Welton

BORN HULL 1883. ORIGINAL HULL PAL. SON OF DANIEL & CAROLINE ABOVE. ALSO LIVED AT RUTLAND TERRACE, NORFOLK STREET. KILLED IN ACTION.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE CHARLES WELTON STUART 11/1078. Born in July 1883, Charles was the youngest of three children to Daniel and Caroline Stuart of 6 May Villas, May Street, Hull. An Upholsterer before the war, he enlisted into the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’; Hull Pals. A member of C Company he trained at Hornsea, Ripon and Beverley throughout 1915 and sailed for Egypt just before Christmas. The job over there was defending the Suez Canal from the Turks, but there was little action for anyone still looking for adventure. They landed in France early in March 1916, and Charles was one of the first casualties. He was killed in action on 29th March 1916 by a trench mortar bomb; a ‘Minenwerfer’. Their sector was relatively quiet, but at dawn and dusk the Germans would religiously fire over three of these ‘Minnies’, and they were a terrifying sight. Resembling a five gallon oil drum and yet packed with high-explosive and shrapnel, these ‘Minnies’ were clearly visible as they catapulted towards the men scrambling for cover in the trenches. They were so big you could watch them turning over and over as they hurtled toward where you crouched in whatever cover you could find. Charles is buried at Mesnil Ridge Cemetery; he was 32 years old.