Pte 36686 Charles Simpson Gwinnell

• Age: 26
• From: Seaforth, Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 20th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Henin Crucifix Cem
  Panel Ref: A.49

Charles Simpson Gwinnell was born on 10th January 1891 in Seaforth and was baptised on 16th November 1892 at St Thomas’s C. of E. Seaforth. He was the son of William Clifford Hollis Gwinnell and his wife Jane (nee Simpson). William and Jane were married at the same church in September 1882.

The 1901 Census shows the family living at 1 Rossini Street, Seaforth.

Charles’s father William, 41 years old, was a joiner born in New Brighton, mother Jane was 42 and had been born in Coatbridge, Glasgow. Charles had six siblings living with him: Jane was 17 and a dressmaker, Lily Maud was 14 and working as a milliner, William was 12, Clifford 8, John 6 and Mabel 4. Also living there was Jane’s brother Daniel Simpson who was also a joiner.

The 1911 Census shows the family have moved and are living at 8 Kilburn Street, Litherland. 

William and Jane have five of their six children living at home – (Lily) Maud is still a milliner, Charles is a plumber, Clifford a painter, Mabel is at school and John is a property jobber. The census shows that William and Jane had been married 28 years with 7 children born and 6 still alive. Also living in the household is a widowed brother in law Thomas Charnock aged 56 who is a steward.

Charles joined the 20th Bn of The King’s Liverpool as Private 36686. He was killed in action on 09th April 1917, aged 26, during the Battle of Arras. 17th, 19th & 20th Battalion at the Battle of Arras 09th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19th King's on the right and the 20th King’s on the left. The 17th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy,and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19th and 20th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10th April.

Of the 17th King’s - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

He now rests at Henin Crucifix Cemetery, France.

Henin-sur-Cojeul was captured on 02nd April 1917, lost in March 1918 after an obstinate resistance by the 40th Division, and retaken on 24 August 1918 by the 52nd (Lowland) Division.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery is named from a calvary standing on the opposite side of the road. It was made by units of the 30th Division after the capture of the village in 1917.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery contains 61 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Two of the burials are unidentified and eight graves, destroyed in later fighting, are now represented by special memorials.

The cemetery was designed by G H Goldsmith.

The Liverpool Daily Post of 18th May 1917 carried the following notice:

Gwinnell – April 9th killed in action, Private Charles Simpson Gwinnell, eldest and beloved son of William and Jane Gwinnell.

Charles' death came just four months after his brother John also died. John had joined the 19th Bn of the King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private 52069. John died on 05th November 1916 and now rests at Etaples Military Cemetery in France.

Charles S Gwinnell is commemorated on Bootle Civic Memorial as is his brother John Gwinnell who is also commemorated at Liverpool Presbytery.

Soldiers Effects to father William, the Pensions of both Charles and John to their parents, 49 Knowley Rd. Bootle.

Tragedy had struck the family, William and Jane suffered the deaths of three of their children within the space of seven months. Their daughter Maud had also died suddenly on the 30th October 1916, the pain must have been insufferable.

Father died aged 67 in 1926 and the mother died aged 74 in 1931.

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