In Maroc British Cemetery, France is the Commonwealth War Grave of 205103 Private Charles Gardner serving with the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry who died 2/09/1917.
The son of Mrs. Mary A. Gardner, of 8, Everett Street, West Hartlepool. Co. Durham.
Peter Kay has submitted the following:-
My maternal grandfather was from Monkwearmouth Shore and my maternal grandmother, Grace Gardner was from Hartlepool, so I only have 2 relatives that are likely to be remembered locally in Hartlepool. My grandmother lost a nephew in each war. Charles in WW1 and Leonard in WW2.
Grace Gardner was the youngest of 13 children, 3 of whom never survived infancy. There were 7 surviving females and 3 males. Her parents were Sydney Smith Gardner and Isabella Winifred Burden.
The eldest child Charles was born in Poplar and was 24 years older than Gran. He married Mary Anne Isabella Hunter of Hartlepool in Stranton Church in May 1890, only 5 months after his youngest sister, my Gran, was born.
In the 1911 census Charles and his family are living at 8 Everett Street West Hartlepool. He was a Boilermaker at a Marine Engine Works and his son Charles was a 14 year old grocer’s errand boy.
Young Charles enlisted at West Hartlepool and joined the Durham Light Infantry and went to France in the early summer of 1917. He was killed in action in France on 2nd September 1917. He was buried in II.L.8. Maroc British Cemetery, Grenay, Pas De Calais.
The CWGC description says that this cemetery was a front-line cemetery used by fighting units and field ambulances. Plot II was opened in April 1917 by the 46th North Midland Division, so I don’t know anything further re the circumstances of Charles’ death. I do not however that the battle of Passchendaele raged between 31 July and 6 Nov 1917. Maroc seems a little away from there, but it could be that he died after being wounded and removed by ambulance?
Charles Gardner is remembered at Hartlepool in H115.30, at West Hartlepool on W111.035 , W111.054 and W111.086 and in the D.L.I. Book of Remembrance page 232.
