Charles Leonard Lockhart

CHARLES LEONARD LOCKHART

Rank:  Private

Service Number: 2947

Units Served: 51st Battalion

Personal Details: Born in Blakevile, Victoria to John and Rosanna, Charles Leonard Lockhart had five sisters and two brothers. He had fair hair and brown eyes and worked as a teacher before enlisting
Enlistment Details:  Charles enrolled from Perth, June 1st 1916 at the age of 22 years

Details about his role in War: On the 9th of November Charles embarked at Fremantle and then on the 8th of February 1917 he was taken to a hospital at Codford due to mumps and inflammation of the joints, the day after he was transferred to Sutton Veny.
On the 16th he was transferred to Wiltshire, then on the 6th of March he was marched in from hospital, and on the 9th of May he proceeded to France and on the 10th he was marched in.
On May the 13th   he joined the unit and was taken on strength. It wasn’t until the 10th of October 1917, just one year after he embarked, that Charles was wounded in action with gunshot wounds to the left thigh and abdomen during the Battle of Passchendaele. He then died on the 12th from those wounds while in Belgium.
Age at Death: 22

Cemetery or Memorial Details: Buried at - Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium. Plot 20 Row J Grave 6A

Interesting Material: Charles was also apparently engaged at the time he enrolled, but his extended family only found out 95 years after Charles death while putting up a memorial plaque at King’s Park for him when some unknown people turned up at the memorial who were the descendants of his fiancé, Amy Richards  of Armadale.

I was also able to find a photo of Charles and his brother Ernest from when they were children eating watermelon at school.

“One by one they’re going from us, To that heavenly home of love, Where they wait for us to join them, When this Earthly race is run” Quote the father placed in the death notice for the local paper.