With thanks to Simon Roots and the Friends of General Cemetery for discovering the story of Mapperley miner Charles Curran, who was laid to rest there in June 1915. The name of Pte Curran is commemorated on the CWGC Screen Wall next to the Cross of Sacrifice at the Nottingham General Cemetery.
Private 2551 Charles Henry Vernon Curran of the 1/7th Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby) Regiment.
Charles Henry Vernon Curran was born in Radford on 9th April 1894 to Henry and Ellen Curran. He was the eldest of seven children and in 1911 at the age of 17, was working as an ‘out setter’ at Gedling Colliery, which had been producing coal for about nine years. An out setter worked at the pit bottom and was responsible for the loading and unloading of the cage of miners, equipment and coal travelling between the surface and the bottom of the lift shaft.
The Great War
Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th 1914, and within weeks, Charles joined the Territorial Force of the Sherwood Foresters on 14th September.
Private Curran was aged 20, 5’3″ tall and weighed 8 stone.
He was posted to ‘B’ Company and sent to France, landing on 20th February 1915.
His regiment were holding and defending the front line trenches near Mount Kemmel, Lindenhoek and Sanctuary Wood on the Ypres Salient during the 2nd Battle of Ypres.
Trench Warfare
On Friday 14th May 1915, Charles and Private 1920 Ernest Allan Ryall from Beeston were standing side by side in their trench that was under fire. Ernest was hit in the mouth by a German bullet that dislodged some of Ernest’s teeth, exited via his cheek and hit Charles in the head. Charles and Ernest were evacuated to a military hospital in France, then repatriated to the UK for further treatment. Charles was admitted to the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading on 1st June 1915. His head wound had worsened and he developed a cerebral hernia and meningitis.
Charles Curran died on Wednesday 9th June 1915 and his body was returned to his family home on Coppice Road, Mapperley (now named Ransom Road).
Full Military Honours
He was buried at the General Cemetery with full military honours on Monday 14th June 1915. Due to equipment shortages, Charles’ coffin, draped in the Union Flag, with his cap and service belt on top, was carried by a normal hearse from his home on Coppice Road to the Dissenters Chapel at the General Cemetery. It was reported at the time that the route from Mapperley to the cemetery was lined by hundreds of members of the public. The final 100 yards of Alfreton Road to the Canning Circus entrance of the cemetery, as well as the pathway from the cemetery entrance to the Dissenters Chapel near to the Waverley Street entrance, was lined with soldiers from the 3/7th Battalion of the Robin Hoods. There were large numbers of the general public in attendance. The funeral service was taken by the vicar of St. Judes Church Mapperley, the Rev’d. Maddock. A firing party fired a volley of three shots, the Last Post and Reveille was also played.
Charles was laid to rest in Plot 4 in the Screen Wall plot, he was 21. He is also commemorated on the The Mapperley War Memorial is a Grade II listed monument at the junction of Woodthorpe Drive and Plains Road in Mapperley.
His pal Pte Ernest Ryall was well enough to attend the funeral. Ernest survived the war and returned to Beeston, where he worked as a boiler maker. Ernest married Flora Fowe on Boxing Day 1919 and died on 21st May 1984, aged 88.