6943: Sergeant-Major Charles Stone (Part 1)
Sergeant-Major Charles STONE, No 1337, "C" Coy (Leigh) Essex Volunteers, M.S.M. Sergeant Major Stone lived at 12 Victoria Road, Leigh-on-Sea. He was born in Wiltshire and went to sea after leaving school, subsequently serving 21 years with the 3rd Dragoon Guards, seeing fighting in India, Egypt and South Africa, spending 18 months as A.D.C. to Lord Roberts. He was awarded the M.S.M. as a W.O.1. and subsequently served in the Natal Police, twice having a hip fractured and the top of his thumb shot off.
He moved to Leigh from Clay End near Waltham, Hertfordshire in 1912. He volunteered at the outbreak as a drill instructor, joining "C" Coy (Leigh) of the Essex Volunteers, becoming C.S.M. then R.S.M. he was later appointed Recruiting Warrant Officer at Southend in June 1915.
On the 13th June 1917 he was travelling to London on a Medical Board Train (to which he was attached "Engaged on Secret Duties") when he was killed by a bomb at Liverpool Street Station during an air raid, aged 58. At the subsequent inquest it was revealed that his body had been terribly mutilated and that he was only identified by his clothing. It was decided that he had died of shock due to injuries of the head and neck and a composite fracture of the left thigh. He left a son and daughter by his first wife, and two daughters by his second. He was buried in War Grave BB.47 in Leigh-on-Sea cemetery.
