Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From Gary Mitchell, Sandgate Cemetery
 
Let us remember a Fallen soldier of The Great War memorialised at Sandgate Cemetery.

On the 7th June 1917, Corporal Charles Clifford Fairless, referred to as Happy, 45th Battalion (Reg No-4183), apprentice fitter (Walsh Island Government Dockyard, Newcastle, N.S.W.) from Forfar Street, Stockton, New South Wales, was killed by machine gun fire between 2 and 3 p.m. at Owl Trench, Battle of Messines, age 20.

Born at Stockton, New South Wales on the 11th April 1897 to John Joseph (died 16.8.1933, Stockton, N.S.W., age 67, buried at Stockton General Cemetery) of 52 Hereford Street, Stockton, New South Wales, and Mary (Lill) Anne Fairless (died 2.7.1962, Stockton, N.S.W., age 91, sleeping at Stockton General Cemetery, Anglican portion, photo 7). Happy enlisted on the 3rd August 1915 with the 13th Battalion at Newcastle, N.S.W.

Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales on board HMAT A60 Aeneas on the 20th December 1915.

Admitted to hospital 28.3.1916 (sore feet).

Reported Missing in Action 7.6.1917.

Charles’s name has been inscribed on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), Belgium.
Place of Association - Stockton, New South Wales, Australia.

Mr. Fairless’s name has also been inscribed on the Book of Gold, Stockton Soldiers' Memorial, Stockton St. Paul's Anglican Church Honour Roll, Stockton Surf Club Roll of Honour, Newcastle Amalgamated Society of Engineers Roll of Honour and The Capt. Clarence Smith Jeffries (V.C.) and Pte. William Matthew Currey (V.C.) Memorial Wall.

Also memorialised at Grandparent's gravesite.

Many thanks to David Watson for the photos and family history, and organising the individual Memorial Plaque on the Jeffries/Currey Memorial Wall.

The small shop at 86 Hereford Street, Stockton, New South Wales, was built in the late 1920's by John and Mary Fairless, who ran a small grocery business there and lived at the rear of the premises.

Prior to that they ran the Fairless Bros. Book Store at 13 Wolfe Street, Newcastle, and lived in Forfar Street, Stockton. Mary was always known as Lill (short for Lily), a name given to her as a young child by her father James Isaacs Davies because of her fair complexion.

They had 3 children, Charles (Happy), Jean and Robert. Charles was killed in action at the Battle of Messines in Belgium on the 7th June 1917, aged 20. Army records say he was buried in a temporary grave, but later he could not be found so he was listed as having No Known Grave and his name was placed on the Menin Gates Memorial, (Panel 27), at Ypres in Belgium.

Fellow soldiers who made eyewitness statements of Charles's death, all commented on his happy disposition, no matter the circumstances. Charles's name is also on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial, the Stockton War Memorial, the Newcastle Memorial Walk, Sandgate Cemetery's Memorial Wall, Stockton's St. Paul's Church, the Stockton Surf Lifesaving Club and has a plaque on his grandparent's and parent's graves at Stockton Cemetery.

Family members say Lill cried so much over the death of Charlie she never cried again, not even when her husband John died in 1933. When building the shop, John and Lill, thinking of their son, placed a likeness of the Menin Gates Memorial in the centre of the shop's facade, 2 circles either side to represent the moon in the painting " Midnight at the Menin Gates" which hangs in the Australian War Memorial and 2 palm trees for his time in Egypt which was enjoyed very much by all the troops who went there.

Lill was on the committee that oversaw the building of the Stockton War Memorial, and her name is engraved on the cenotaph as part of the official unveiling party. John and Lill also donated the first flag pole for the monument. Lill and her brother John Hugh Davies, who was the Newcastle magistrate for invalid and old-age pensions, were on the Stockton welcoming home committee for WW1 soldiers and also did voluntary work at the seaman's mission, now Wescott nursing home.

They also helped organise the Stockton gymkhana's with events such as Hunt the Hun and Kill the Kaiser. Lill was a founding member of the Stockton R.S.L. Women's Auxiliary, being honoured with a life membership after spending 12 years on the executive committee and as president for a short time in the 1940's, and in 1943 she was awarded a Certificate of Application and Badge of Merit by the R.S.L. Federal Executive.

She died in 1962, aged 91, a much cherished member of the Fairless and Davies families. Lill's daughter Jean was a member of the Stockton Dinkum Girls group who raised money for Australian troops abroad in WW1 and feature in the historical society's mural on the corner of Mitchell and Queen Streets, dressed in their white uniforms with red hat bands.

Cousin to Thomas Arthur Davies (clerk from King Street, Stockton, New South Wales, enlisted 5.2.1916, 35th Battalion, Reg No-1709, wounded in action - 28.8.1918 (GSW scalp, mild), RTA 10.11.1919, died 23.6.1961, Waratah, N.S.W., age 69) also served 1st A.I.F. Photo 8.
Contact with descendants would be greatly appreciated.

For more detail, see “Forever Remembered “
http://www.commemoratingwarheroes.com/cemetery-main-search/

Lest We Forget.