Charles Frederick Brinklow was born in the Spring of 1891 in Hemel Hempstead, the oldest child of Frederick Arthur Brinklow and Emily Ghost. Frederick and Emily had nine children together who were: Charles Frederick, Herbert Thomas, Edith Alice, Herbert Arthur, William Percy, Nellie Beatrice, Sybil Dorothy Marjory, Hilda Emily and the youngest Edward Richard.

The youngest boy Edward was born only two years before Charles was killed. Herbert Thomas died in 1894 aged one and Charles’ brother Herbert Arthur served with the 6th Northamptonshire Regiment in the Great War. He was wounded in July 1918 but survived the conflict.

When Frederick Snr. and Emily married, their ‘Best man’ and ‘Bridesmaid’ were William Leonard Ansell and Mary Ann Carrington, the step-father and mother of William George Carrington, another young Hemel soldier who was killed in the Great War and who appears on the Hemel Hempstead War Memorial twice. Once as William Carrington and once as William Ansell. William’s biography also appears on this site.

By 1901 the Brinklow family had moved to Sunnyhill Road in Hammerfield between Crouchfield and Hemel Hempstead where they lived in well into the 1920s.

By the time he was twenty-years-old in 1911, Charles had started work as a ‘General Labourer’, however, he moved to Nash Mills to work for John Dickinson & Co. Limited before the start of the War. It was while working in Nash Mills that he met Mary Ann Horne, an ‘Envelop Maker’ from Tring and they married in the Summer of 1915 in Hemel Hempstead.

The date of Charles’ enlistment is not known but it seems he may have joined in March 1916 under the provisions of the Military Service Act and before the married man’s exemption was lifted in May of that year. Nevertheless, he attested at Watford and joined the 24th (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (2nd Sportsman’s), a battalion of the City of London Regiment.

The 'Sportsman's' battalions were among the ‘Pals’ battalions formed by the British Army in the early stages of the First World War. However, rather than young men from a small geographical area, these particular battalions were largely made up of men who had made their name in sports such as cricket, golf, boxing and football or the media. The 24th (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (2nd Sportsman’s) was one of two battalions raised in London by Mrs. Emma Cunliffe-Owen.

She was challenged by a group of men friends to raise a battalion after she had questioned why they had not enlisted, so she telegrammed Lord Kitchener to ask: “Will you accept complete battalion of middle- and upper-class men, physically fit, able to shoot and ride, up to the age of 45?” He promptly accepted her offer and Emma immediately advertised in The Times as follows: “Sportsmen, aged 19 to 45, upper and middle class only. Wanted at Once. Entrance fee 3 guineas, or kit. No other financial obligations. Head Recruiting Office, E. Cunliffe­-Owen, Hotel Cecil, London. Hours 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily”

Within four weeks she had raised her first battalion and even paid for a training camp to be built in Hornchurch, Essex to prepare the men for war. Despite the advert stipulating “upper and middle classes only”, the mixture of recruits was extraordinary. It was described by Fred Ward, a captain in the 24th, who after the war created a history of the battalions.

“It was cosmopolitan, practically every grade of life was represented, from the peer to the peasant; class distinctions were swept away, every man turned to and pulled his bit. In this hut [of 30 men at Hornchurch] the first bed was occupied by the brother of a peer. The second by the man who formerly drove his motor-car. Other beds were occupied by a mechanical engineer, an old Blundell School boy, planters, a mine overseer from Scotland, a man in possession of a flying pilot's certificate secured in France, a photographer, a poultry farmer, an old sea dog who had rounded Cape Horn on no fewer than nine occasions, a man who had hunted seals ‘with more patches on his trousers than he could count’, a bank clerk, and so on.”

There were also sports stars of past and present; England cricketers, league footballers, boxers, a top golfer, rugby players, an Olympic archery champion, rowers, a Wimbledon umpire and athletes. The definition of a “sportsman” was wide-ranging; the battalion took in explorers and adventurers, big game hunters, old soldiers, lawyers, council officials, gamekeepers, builders and tradesmen, a former mayor of Exeter, stockbrokers, a baronet, scholars, artists, shopkeepers, gamblers, actors and comedians, teachers and journalists. Anyone, in essence, who was a good sport.

One of the most famous recruits was aged sixty-four; Frederick Courteney Selous, big game hunter, conservationist, explorer, inspiration for the King Solomon’s Mines stories and friend of US President Teddy Roosevelt. He won the DSO and was killed fighting German forces in East Africa with the 25th “Frontiersmen” Battalion of the Fusiliers.

Charles undertook his basic training at Hare Hall, Romford in Essex and on the 26th July 1916, he went to France to join his Regiment as part of the 5th Brigade in the 2nd Division. The 24th had been fighting at the Somme near Montaubin when Charles arrived at the end of July and he was soon in the trenches during the next two months. His first significant action came at the Battle of Ancre in November.

The 24th Battalion attacked the German lines on the morning of the 13th November and during the fighting suffered significant casualties, some as a result of the moving barrage from its own artillery. However, it achieved its objectives and captured the enemy trenches. The casualties on that day were as follows: "Officers, 13 killed, missing or wounded. O.R., 191 killed or wounded; 50 missing."

Charles was one of the men listed ‘missing’ following the attack and he was subsequently confirmed dead. He was Killed in Action on Monday, 13th November 1916. He had been at the front for just over three months when he died.

He was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial in Apsley.

Charles is Remembered with Honour in the Serre Road Cemetery No.2, Somme, France where he is interred in Grave I. B. 30. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his wife Mary Ann, reads: ”HE GIVETH TO HIS BELOVED SLEEP PEACE PERFECT PEACE”

He was 25 years old when he died.

Charles was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.