Forename: Charles
Surname: Hole
Rank: Private
Regiment: London Regiment
Institution: St Paul’s Practising School
Charles Hole was born on 28 October 1882, the son of William and Lucy Hole. They lived on Swindon Road while he was a pupil at the Practising School from 1889, and after leaving school Charles became a greengrocer in the High Street.
He enlisted as a Private in the 2/15th Battalion London Regiment (Civil Service Rifles) in July 1917 and set sail for Egypt. The ship he travelled on was torpedoed by submarines in the waters outside Alexandria on 30 December 1917. His body was recovered and buried at Hadra War Memorial Cemetery in Egypt. Charles left a widow who carried on the greengrocers business after his death. He was also the brother of Michael Hole, who died three months earlier in the conflict, and Mary Ann Hole, who took her own life due to the grief of losing her siblings. Charles’s headstone reads “For Ever with the Lord. In Ever Loving Memory of a Devoted Husband”.