Charles Brant. Died 1 July 1916
Charles is one of five Brants who are named on Wokingham Remembers. Although the Brant name is first mentioned in the Wokingham area in the 1600’s, this branch is from Sherfield in Hampshire. It was Charles’s father Alfred, who moved to Wokingham from Sherfield after meeting and in 1873, marrying a local girl, Elizabeth Frankham. Alfred and Elizabeth would not live to see the appalling loss the family suffered at the turn of the 20th century.
Charles Joshua Brant was born in 1886 and was seventh of nine children, five boys and four girls. By 1901 Charles was a Garden Boy and living with his mother in Nine Mile Lane in Crowthorne. His father had already passed away by 1891, when Charles was a child.
By 1911, Charles was living in Godalming as a labourer. He had married Florence Gear in 1913 and in 1914 they had a baby daughter, Alice. We know that Alice grew up and married Alfred May. Having lost his father when he was a child, he was also to see his mother die quite early (1907). A year after his mother died, Charles lost Henry, his 20 year old brother who was handicapped (declared ‘imbecile’ 1901 Census).
Charles was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916 and is buried in Ovillers military cemetery*. Another brother, Frederick was to be killed in 1917. Charles’s wife Florence, who now had a daughter to support, eventually remarried in 1921 to James William Butler and went on to have two further children, Doris (1922) and Betty (1924).
George, the eldest brother who survived the war, had married in 1905 to Annie and they had three children (as of 1911), Georgina, Ethel and Alfred. In 1911, the family were living in Hatch Ride in Crowthorne and George was a Carter / Coal Merchant. Charles’s photo at the top of this page shows him living in Hatch Ride too during the war and it is possible that he and his wife and child were living with his brother.
* At present there are no records which tell us when Charles joined the army. There are two Charles Brants who were killed during the period of the Somme, one on the 1st July 1916 (service number 16837) and the other on 23rd October 1916 (service number 8402). Both were with the Royal Berkshire Regiment and both with the 2nd Battalion. The 1911 Census shows a Charles Brant with the 2nd Battalion, born in Wallingford. This is not our Charles, but it is likely that as he was a regular, his service number would be shorter than anyone joining later. As we know our Charles was a labourer in 1911, was married and had a child by 1914, it is unlikely he was with the 2nd Battalion who were in India up to the begining of the war. If he joined later he would have a longer service number. We assume (admittedly a dangerous thing to do) that as the Charles who died on the first day of the Somme had a longer number, then this is our Charles.
Rank: Private. Service No: 16837
Date of Death: 01/07/1916
Regiment/Service: Royal Berkshire Regiment 2nd Bn.
Grave Reference VII. S. 6. Cemetery OVILLERS MILITARY CEMETERY
Hatch Cottage Hambledon Godalming
Hatch Ride, Crowthorne
9 Mile Lane, Crowthorne, Berkshire