Surr,+CW


 * Bombardier Charles William Surr D.C.M.**



The eldest son of a policeman who left Lincolnshire to work in the West Riding 1887, Charlie Surr was a grocer in Ingrow who had been in the Territorials before the war.

He enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery in the first week of September 1914, serving in A/52, 52nd Brigade RFA, 9th (Scottish) Divisional Artillery. The 9th Division was the first Kitchener division to be sent to France, in May 1915, and became a formation of considerable repute. Early days at Festubert, but played a key role at Loos in September, attacking the Hohenzollern Redoubt with some success. Charlie Surr was a signaller, and one of seven men decorated for maintaining communications between the infantry around Fosse 8 and detachments that had galloped to take up advanced positions near “The Dump”, an enormous flat-topped colliery slag heap, all under constant fire. They were ordered to Ypres immediately after, and faced Hill 60 until January 1916 when they occupied the Ploegsteert Wood sector. Dispatched to the Somme in June, the 9th Division infantry were in reserve for 1st July, but the artillery were in line at Maricourt supporting the successful attack of 30th & 18th Divisions towards Montauban. The signallers spent the next 3 weeks in a great many locations in and around Bernafay Wood, Trones Wood, Maltz Horn Farm and Longueval/Delville Wood, often in exposed positions with the infantry. Charlie was knee-capped by shrapnel on 18th July, the day of the main German counter attack on Delville Wood; he was evacuated through an excellent medical chain and spent months in recovery in hospitals in Norwich and Keighley. His wound however immobilized him and ended his war, and he spent the remainder in RGA signals offices in Edinburgh and London.

He was officially awarded his DCM from Loos by King George V at Ibrox stadium in September 1917, a unique mass investiture of much precedence for British social history. He survived demobilization by only a couple of weeks, falling victim to pneumonia in June 1919.

He is buried in Scamblesby churchyard in Lincolnshire, his parents’ village since his father’s retirement from the police in 1911. His headstone also commemorates his brother-in-law John Henry Hitch, 1/Lancs Fusiliers, who was killed near Meteren in 1918, also from Keighley – both appear on the Ingrow war memorial.

(History kindly provided by David Surr, Charlie's Great Nephew)


 * Keighley News, Saturday January 22, 1916:**

DISTINCTIONS FOR LOCAL MEN.

KEIGHLEY D.C.M. WINNERS. Bombardier Charles W. Surr, an Ingrow soldier, who is with the Royal Field Artillery in France, has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He was recommended for the distinction after the battle of Loos for repairing telephone wires in that engagement whilst under a heavy rifle fire, at great personal risk to himself. In a letter to his sister a fortnight ago he said he had been further recommended. but for what deed he did not know. Bombardier Surr is the son of ex - Police-Constable Surr, formerly of Riddlesden, and now living in retirement in Lincolnshire. He enlisted immediately after the outbreak of war, and went out to France about eight months ago. He is very well known in Keighley and District, and before his enlistment was in business as a grocer in Ingrow Lane. Almost three months ago he was at home on a short furlough.


 * Keighley News, Saturday August 19, 1916:**

Bombardier C. W. Surr, Royal Field Artillery, who before enlistment was in business as a grocer in Ingrow Lane, Keighley, has been wounded in the knee, and admitted to hospital at Thorpe, Norwich. In September last he won the Distinguished Conduct medal for gallantry in the fighting around Loos.