Regiment: Royal Army Medical Corps attached Rifle Brigade
Date & place of birth: 30 November 1876, Hammersmith
Date & place of death: 8 April 1918 (aged 41), France
Captain Charles Edgar Andrew Wilson had moved to Petworth by 1911 where he was a GP. He volunteered to go into the army and worked as a medical officer tending the injured until his death.
Family background
Captain Charles Edgar Andrew Wilson was the eldest son of The Reverend Alfred Wilson MA, Vicar of Bedford Park, Chiswick, London, and Fanny Wilson. Edgar, as he seems to have been called, had four brothers though one had died by 1911. In 1891 he was a pupil at Charterhouse. His mother Fanny was born aboard ship and in 1901 she and Edgar were on the Isle of Wight, perhaps on holiday. Edgar was described in the census as a medical student and the census says Fanny was “of private means”. His father died on 4 August 1909 and left £44,315 19s 10d in his will. Edgar went to Christ Church College, Oxford where he gained a first class honours degree in physiology. He worked at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children before going into general practice in Petworth. On 23 April 1908 he married Mary Barnes Mein in Newcastle and by 1911 they were living in Church Hill, North St Petworth where he was a Medical Practitioner. They had a son Richard born 27 February 1909. His brother Laurence Trench Wilson also fought and died in the war on 9 August 1915.
Military service
Captain Charles Edgar Andrew Wilson volunteered for service and was gazetted as a Captain into the Royal Army Medical Corps in September 1916. He immediately went to France to serve in the Expeditionary Force. He served as medical officer to the Northumberland Fusiliers, then later transferring to become the medical officer of the Rifle Brigade.
Death and commemoration
Edgar died at the General Hospital at Etretat on 8 April 1918, aged 41, from wounds received on 28 March 1918 near St Quentin while tending the wounded under heavy fire.
The Colonel of the Northumberland Fusiliers to which he was attached wrote “He was loved and admired by us all and I know that, personally, I have lost a great friend, one of the kindest and most sympathetic men I have known.” The Colonel of the Rifle Brigade wrote “He is a great loss to us all, the best doctor we ever had; we all loved him.”
Captain Charles Edgar Andrew Wilson was recommended for the Military Cross for conspicuous courage and bravery under heavy fire.
He is buried in Etretat Churchyard Extension. His name is on the Charterhouse School Roll of Honour and this memorial plaque in All Hallows Church, Tillington.