Additions will be checked before being published on the website and where possible will be forwarded to the person who submitted the original entries. Your contact details will not be forwarded, but they can send a reply via this messaging system.
please scroll down to send a message
Cpl. Charles William Heaton
British Army 8th Btn. King's Shropshire Light Infantry
from:Liverpool
My maternal grandfather, Charles William Heaton, was born on the 9th August 1895 in Dyke Street Everton, Lancashire. He attended St. John's Church in Everton where he was a choirboy. According to my mother, he had a fine baritone voice as a man. He possessed a fine collection of books (many of which have been passed down to my mother), including the complete works of William Shakespeare as well as books on history and philosophy, gramophone records, and pianola rolls. At the age of 15, Charles moved from Everton to Bloomsbury, London, where was apprenticed to his uncle as a French polisher. Soon after the start of the Great War, on 8 September 1914, Charles enlisted in the army. He joined the King's Light Shropshire Infantry, which he facetiously referred to as ‘The King's Silly Little Idiots’. His serial number was W3626, his regimental number was 13701, and he held the rank of Corporal. He served in Greece – we have his pay-book, showing he was paid in drachmas. After contracting and suffering from malaria, he received a war pension of 13 shillings a month. On 23 February 1919, he was demobbed and transferred to Army Reserves, Shrewsbury. According to my mother, he was a highly principled man and a firm Socialist both by nature and politically. He may also have been at one time a member of the Communist Party. He received the daily paper - The Daily Worker and Russia Today, which were the mouthpieces of the party. He was a staunch supporter of the National Amalgamated Furnishing Trades Association and became President at Branch 54 in Liverpool. He would often leave the family at home whilst he went to his club at the Union's Liverpool headquarters at Low Hill, ostensibly on Union business but probably for a few pints of beer.
