The early life of John Charleston is a challenge to unpick. Later documents confirm his parents as being John and Clare Charleston from Cardiff, Glamorganshire, although there are no baptism or census records to provide additional detail.

Much of the information about John’s life comes from his New Zealand Expeditionary Force service papers. These confirm that he was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, on 1st April 1887. The document suggests that he had spent nine years in the Royal Navy, and that, at the point he enlisted, on 19th September 1916, he was working for the shipping company Shaw, Savill & Albion.

By this point, John was living in Wellington, New Zealand, and had been there for at least a decade. He had married Mary Agnes Sykes in the city on 6th February 1906, and they had four children: Clarence, Phyllis, Arthur and Kenneth.

John joined the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, and was passed as medically fit: his medical noted he was 5ft 2.5ins (1.59m) tall, with brown hair, grey eyes, and a fresh complexion.

Rifleman Charleston spent the next three months training at barracks in Trentham. This time was not without incident, however, and he spent two separate period in hospital – for a growth on his tongue in October 1916, and appendicitis a month later. By the middle of January, however, his unit boarded HMNZT 75 bound for Britain.

The journey back to the UK took ten weeks, and it would not be until 28th March 1917 that Rifleman Charleston marched into Sling Camp in Wiltshire. He would remain there for two months as preparations were made to go to France. During this time, John went AWOL for three days. On his return he was confined to barracks for a week, and docked that three days’ pay.

Rifleman Charleston’s unit arrived in France on 26th May 1917. John, however, would not see much, if any, fighting. Within a couple of days he was admitted to hospital with syphilis, a condition which would keep recurring over the coming months. John was sent back to Britain, spending four separate periods of time receiving treatment over the next eight months.

John’s last admission was in the No. 3 New Zealand General Hospital in Codford, Wiltshire, on 23rd January 1918. This time, his condition would prove to be too severe. Rifleman Charleston passed away from syphilitic meningitis on 15th March 1918: he was a fortnight short of his 41st birthday.

The body of John Charleston was laid to rest in the graveyard extension of St Mary’s Church, Codford, not far from where he had breathed his last.

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