Charles Allen Chown was born in the Sussex village of Lyminster, at the start of 1882. The tenth of eleven children, his parents were Samuel and Mary Chown. Samuel was a general labourer, and when he passed away in 1898, Charles and his siblings rallied to support his now widowed mother.

The 1901 census found Mary, Charles and his brother Jesse living at 32 Lennox Road, Worthing, West Sussex. Jesse was employed as a brickmaker, while Charles had found work as a solicitor’s clerk. The family had two boarders, Helen and Rosie Bulbeck, and Charles’ niece, Minnie, was also staying with them.

Away from work, Charles was a music lover, and joined the local operatic society. In 1904 he appeared in a local version of Iolanthe, his “piece of portraiture being described as one of the successes of the occasion, for his facial play was good, and the drolleries of the character were displayed in an each and natural manner.” [Worthing Gazette: Wednesday 12th September 1917] In the following year’s Mikado, he took the role of the Lord High Executioner, and he was noted as being a “born comedian, with the most mobile countenance and a singularly dry form of humour…” [Worthing Gazette: Wednesday 12th September 1917]

By the time of the 1911 census, Charles had moved on with work, and moved out of home. Taking a room at 7 Tarring Road, Worthing, his landlords were Harold and Rose Ward. Still employed as a clerk, he was now employed by one of the estate agents in the town, although it is clear that his passion was elsewhere. When he joined up in the autumn of 1914, he gave his trade as musician.

Charles enlisted on 7th October 1914 in Ashton-under-Lyme, Lancashire. What took him north is unclear, although a theatre tour is a possibility. His service records note that he was 5ft 8.5ins (1.74m) tall and weighed 138lbs (62.6kg). He had dark brown hair, brown eyes and a sallow complexion.

Initially assigned to the Manchester Regiment, Private Chown was soon transferred to the 8th (Service) Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment. He was obviously dedicated to his job: by the end of October 1914 he had been promoted to Lance Corporal, and within six weeks he rose to Sergeant.

In July 1915, Charles’ unit was dispatched to France. That autumn, they remained based near Tilques, in Northern France, but Sergeant Chown’s health was beginning to suffer. After just three months overseas, he was medically evacuated to Britain to receive treatment for pleurisy, and was hospitalised in Chatham, Kent.

When he recovered, Sergeant Chown was reassigned to the 10th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment, before being transferred to the 47th Training Reserve Battalion in September 1916. That winter, however, his health received a setback, and he contracted tuberculosis. He would spend the first half of the following year in hospitals in Aldershot in Hampshire, Sutton Veny in Wiltshire and, from May 1917, the 3rd Southern General Hospital in Oxford.

Sergeant Chown’s health would continue to deteriorate, and he was formally discharged from the army on 6th July 1917. He returned to Worthing, and his mother’s home, 2 Montague Place. Charles would eventually succumb to his medical condition, and he passed away on 31st August 1917, at the age of 35 years old.

The body of Charles Allen Chown was laid to rest in the family plot in Broadwater Cemetery, Worthing.

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