Hero of the Shropshires honoured far from home
A service was held by the British Embassy at the grave in Jerusalem of a Shropshire regiment soldier who was killed in action in 1918.
Among those attending was Julia Ray, the granddaughter of Private Charles Edward Griffiths, who was 28 when he died. She placed wreaths on his grave.
Private Griffiths was killed on March 10, 1918, and a memorial service was held at St Boniface’s Church, Bunbury, Cheshire, earlier this year 100 years to the day after the original memorial service, and included the same readings.
At that service there were three wreaths and 37 poppy crosses, one for each of his direct living relatives, and these were taken by Julia, who is from Chester, to his final resting place at the British military cemetery in Jerusalem for the service held on November 10.
Private Griffiths served with the 10th Battalion of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and was killed in a battle in which another member of his battalion – Oswestry’s Private Harold Whitfield – won the Victoria Cross.
A farmer, he lived in Cholmondeston, near Crewe, and joined the Cheshire Yeomanry in 1911. In an amalgamation it was later to become the 10th Battalion of the KSLI.
He left a widow and a son.
