Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Charles Nevin WRIGHT

(1897 – 1917)

Like a number of others writing blogs, I am running slightly behind in my posts.  I found this week’s challenge “Tax” very difficult and the topic I felt did not really follow any of my research.  I have decided, because Australia’s Anzac Day, 25 April, is looming fast, that I would write about my first cousin once removed, Charles Nevin Wright who paid the ultimate price of war in 1917.  This was a real “tax” because tax is a contribution levied on persons, property or business for support of government.  With this in mind, I feel this week’s blog sort of fits the topic because Charles Nevin Wright made the biggest contribution levied on a person to support the Australian Government and British Nation.

Charles Nevin Wright was the first child born to Frances Matilda (nee Statton) and Charles Alfred Wright.  He was born on 13 October 1897 in the mining town of Zeehan, some 139 km south west of Burnie in Tasmania.  His father Charles had been appointed “head teacher” in the West Zeehan School a year earlier in 1896.

His brother Keith Douglas Wright was born on 4 April 1899 followed by a sister, Verdi Isla Wright in 1900 and another brother, Lyle Wright in 1903. 

By the time the family had moved to Hobart in 1905, Charles had another sister, Marie Eveline Wright.  His father had been transferred to Hobart, continuing his teaching career there. 

When Charles’ father was transferred to Charles Street School in 1908, the family moved again, this time to Launceston in the north of Tasmania.  Another child was born into the Wright clan on 18 February 1911 whilst they were living at 7 Hill Street, Launceston West.  Mollie Gweneth Wright completed the family of seven children.  Charles was aged 13.

In 1910, Charles joined the Cadets.  He completed his formal education and gained work as a clerk.  He had grown to be quite a handsome young man with dark brown hair, grey eyes and a dark complexion.  He was 5 feet 6¾ inches (approx. 1.71 metres) tall and weighed 10 stone 6 pounds (approx. 62.2 kilograms).

The quiet, gentle life style for the Wright family was about to change and similar changes would affect almost every Australian household in some way.  The change came on the 28 June 1914, when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated triggering the beginning of a World War, originating in Europe. 

Australia’s involvement in WWI began when Britain and Germany went to war on 4 August 1914.  Australia had pledged full support for Britain.  The outbreak of war was greeted in Australia with great enthusiasm.

Like many young Australian men at that time, Charles was keen for adventure and wanted to serve his country.  Charles completed his Australian Imperial Force Attestation Paper for Persons Enlisted for Service Abroad on 28 April, 1916 at the Launceston Recruitment Office.  By 21 May 1916, he had taken and signed the Oath.  On the 31 May 1916, he was enlisted as a Private and given Regimental Number 2766 in the Australian Imperial Force, 40th Battalion, 10th Regiment 6 Reinforcement Unit, stationed in Claremont.  months!  Charles was aged 18 years, 6 months!

The 40th Battalion was raised solely within the island state of Tasmania in 1916 and was in some of the most severe fighting in Battles of Messines and Passchendaele on the Western Front in the last two years of the war.  By the war's end, the 40th Battalion and Tasmania had suffered the loss of 475 killed and 1,714 wounded.  The 40th Battalion wasn’t the only one that Tasmanians made a contribution to, as over 5,000 men enlisted in the 12th, 15th and 26th infantry battalions, and many others were sent as general reinforcements joining numerous other battalions and corps.

After initial training, Charles embarked from Melbourne on “His Majesty’s Australian Transport Orsova” (Ship Number A67) on 6 December 1916.  The ship disembarked troops 33 days later at Plymouth, England on 17 February 1917.

Charles had now been elevated to the rank of Corporal and was initially sent to a camp at Durrington in Wiltshire County, south west, England.  He was then moved to the port city of Southampton in Hampshire on England’s south coast from where he sailed on 3 August 1917, to the major port of Havre in the north western Normandy region of France.

Charles’ battalion served in the trenches along the Western Front, but he was not fighting in the war very long before he was seriously wounded.  He received severe gun-shot wounds to his face, chest and legs on 2 October 1917.  He was admitted to the 11th AFA before being transferred to the 22nd General Hospital in Camiers on 3 October 1917.

The village of Camiers itself is small and stands just inland from the dunes on the south-west and west-facing coast just north of Etaples.  The flat lands of Camiers, in the department of Pas-de-Calais in the French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, was the site of the huge base depot of the British army in France and this is where Charles was transferred to.  It is now known as Etaples camp.  

“The Base Hospital was part of the casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Casualty Clearing Stations. They were manned by troops of the Royal Army Medical Corps, with attached Royal Engineers and men of the Army Service Corps. In the theatre of war in France and Flanders, the British hospitals were generally located near the coast. They needed to be close to a railway line, in order for casualties to arrive ……. they also needed to be near a port where men could be evacuated for longer-term treatment in Britain.

There were two types of Base Hospital, known as Stationary and General Hospitals. They were large facilities, often centred on some pre-war buildings such as seaside hotels. …… Most hospitals were assisted by voluntary organisations, most notably the British Red Cross.”

(Courtesy of http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/british-base-hospitals-in-france/

On the 5 October 1917, Corporal Charles Nevin Wright passed away from his injuries at 22nd General Hospital, Camiers, France.  He was aged 19 years

Below is an extract from a letter from a Red Cross Wounded and Missing Inquiry on 26 December 1917:-

“In regards to the above man” [Charles Nevin Wright] “who was admitted to this hospital on 4 Oct 1917 with gunshot wounds to the chest and head penetrating the skull.  He was unconscious on admission and remained so until his death the following day.”

Charles Nevin Wright’s casualty is recognised under the terms “Commonwealth War Dead”.  His body is buried at the Etaples Military Cemetery, Grave 4b Number 691 at Etaples, Pas de Calais, France.  The Grave or Memorial Reference is XXVII, E. 2A.

The town of Etaples is about 27 kilometres south of Boulogne.  The Etaples Military Cemetery is to the north of the town, on the west side of the road to Boulogne.  The cemetery contains 10,771 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, the earliest dating from May 1915.  35 of these burials are unidentified.  The cemetery is the largest Commission cemetery in France and was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

During World War I, the area around Etaples was the scene of immense concentrations of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals.  It was remote from attack, except from aircraft and accessible by railway from both the northern or southern battlefields.

In 1917, 100,000 troops were camped among the sand dunes and the hospitals which included eleven general, one stationary, four Red Cross hospitals and a convalescent depot, could deal with 22,000 wounded or sick.

Corporal Charles Nevin Wright was posthumously awarded the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal (Issued No. 54160) and Victory Medal (Issued No. 53320) and a photograph of the grave (in triplicate) was sent to his father, Charles Alfred Wright at 32 Frankland Street, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.

Charles Nevin Wright paid the supreme tax - the ultimate contribution levied on a person to support the Australian Government and British Nation – his life!

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©  Kathy Statton  17 April, 2018