His father died in 1890, when Charles was aged about 3. After that, Charles's mother and her seven children must have lived in severe poverty in Willesden, Middlesex.  Charles and two sisters and one brother became "British Home Children", sent to Ontario, Canada as farm workers or domestics - in Charles's case aged 8, in 1896. Charles enlisted in the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force in 1915.  In July 1917 he was invalided out from France, and treated for appendicitis in the Canadian Military Hospital in Bramshott, Surrey. He died on 23 July 1917, of haematemesis following surgery. Charles's Army records showed that he had kept in touch with his mother, Jane (Eliza) Hales, despite his 20 years absence.  

David Andrews