Ashtead War Memorials - WWI - Lance Corporal Charles Hubert Fabray
8th Bn, Rifle Brigade

Although Charles’ birth was registered at Epsom for the March Quarter 1895, he had in fact been born in Leatherhead, at Clinton Road, to Walter Fabray, a house decorator/painter from Reading, Berks, and his wife Harriett née Gray [b. Kingsclere, Hants]. Their marriage was registered at Reading 9/1887.

Sadly, Harriet died aged only 32 [registered Epsom 12/1897] so that in the 1901 Census, Walter is shown as a widower responsible for bringing up four children of whom Charles was the youngest. In Soldiers died in the Great War, Charles Herbert [sic] Fabray is noted ‘resident Ashtead’. A 1910/11 Directory lists Walter Fabray as living on the East side of Park Lane, Ashtead. This is confirmed from the 1911 Census as number 6, where he lived with three of his children, including Charles, being looked after by a housekeeper.

Charles Fabray died on 25th January 1916. In the CWGC record he was noted as 'Son of Walter and Harriett Fabray, of 5 Padua Rd, Penge, London.' Evidently his father had moved away from Ashtead but his mother had long been the late Harriett.

CH Fabray is described as a 'butchers boy' in the 1911 Census. He qualified as a butcher, working it would seem at Oatlands Park, and, in his spare time, became a Territorial with 5th East Surrey Regiment.

When he signed up, aged 19 years 6 months, at Weybridge (signing himself 'Hewbert') he was first destined for King’s Royal Rifles but ended up in the Rifle Brigade as Private Z2483. By 29 November 1914 he found himself on active service in France.

The 8th (Service) Battalion had been formed at Winchester on 21 August 1914 as part of K1 and attached to 41st Brigade in 14th (Light) Division. It moved to Aldershot, going on to Grayshot in November but returned to Aldershot in March 1915. By May 1915 the unit had again landed at Boulogne.

The History of The Rifle Brigade 1914-1918, Volume 1 1914-16, records that the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Battalions in the 14th (Light) Division held their trenches in the Saint Jean Sector of Ypres. On the 13th January 1916 Colonel VO Ulrich Thynne DSO, of the Wiltshire Yeomanry, relieved Major CHN Seymour KRRC in command of the Eighth. The strenuous character of the trench warfare in the Salient at this time may be judged from the casualties of the three battalions during the month of January, just under two hundred all told, of which fully twenty five per cent were killed. Charles Fabray, by now a Lance Corporal, died on 25th January 1916.

Essex Farm was the location of an Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) during the Great War a few miles outside the centre of Ypres, Belgium. The large majority of those buried in Essex Farm Cemetery were named since they would have been known to the men who worked in the makeshift medical centre there.

The Ashtead war memorial shows him as Pte C Fabray. According to the CWGC record it should be L/Cpl CH Fabray.

A Bronze Memorial Plaque was issued to the Next of Kin of those who died during WW1. One bearing the name Charles Herbert Fabray, was offered at auction in 1994.

Links
Oatlands Village War Memorial at www.allaboutweybridge.co.uk/aaw/oatlands_war_memorial_oatlands.htm
History of Oatlands Park http://weyriver.co.uk/theriver/places_5_weybridge.htm

text: Brian Bouchard, with input from Ann Williams and Frank Haslam. If you can add to this page please contact the editor.
page added 27 Feb 2009: updated 13 Apr 2009: 28 Nov 17