The Men

The Men

Sunday 19 January 2014

* Captain Charles Selss Burrows

Charles Sells Burrows was born on 14th November, 1884.  He was a pupil at High School from 1895 to 1903.  He was awarded the Military Cross on the 1st January, 1918, but almost six months later he was killed in action.  

Irish Life Magazine: 21 June 1918

Capt. Charles S. Burrows M.C., who was killed in action on May 28th, 1918, was
the eldest son of the late Mr. Alexander C. Burrows and Mrs. Burrows, 8 Albert Villas, Morehampton Road, Dublin, and was in his 33rd year. He was educated at the High School, Dublin. In January, 1915, he returned from South America and
went to France in September of that year.

The decision to go war may have been a complicated one for Charles Selss Burrowes as his grandmother. Antonetta Wilchelmina Amanda Selss, was a German, born in Westfalen, Prussia.  With an irony that mirrored the drama played out between the German and British royal families, Charles Selss Burrowes found himself going to war against his own relations.
(Source:  Michelle Burrowes, Ancestry.com)

Notes taken from 'The Erasmian', June 1918 p49 
'Captain C. S. Burrows (1895-1903), M.C., of the 14th Northumberland Fusiliers (Pioneers), was killed in France on May 28th. He was 33 years of age, and was the son of the late Mr. A. C. Burrows. On leaving school he entered Trinity College, where he passed through the Engineering School and took his degree in 1907. He had been engaged in engineering in S. America for four years on the outbreak of the war, when he at once came home and got a Commission in the Northumberlands in January, 1915, and went to France in the following September. 
He won the Military Cross last November in the fighting north of Ypres. He was killed instantaneously by a shell during an attack on a trench his company were holding in the afternoon, having been in action since the 26th. His colonel wrote of him as "always cool and collected and absolutely fearless;" "the fine work and gallant leadership he displayed were simply splendid." His battalion formed part of the famous 21st Division, greatly praised by Sir Douglas Haig for their part in all the great battles since the March offensive, and one of the four who withstood the onslaught of the Germans near Rheims.'


Military Cross Record Card
He 'was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the battalion on 26 January 1915 and entered France with the battalion on 8/9/1915.
He was promoted Captain was awarded the Military Cross and killed in Action on 28/5/1918, has no known grave and is commemorated on the
Soissons Memorial to the Missing in France.'  

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