Charles Shortland Gray, like Herbert Scorer, was a Captain in the Lincolnshire Regiment when they were both killed at Loos on 13th October 1915. They advanced on the Hohenzollern Redoubt without artillery cover, only to find that the German wire was uncut and they were mown down by German artillery and machine gun fire.
Charles Gray was a Stamford boy, with a younger brother and sister, the son of an ironfounder and JP, also called Charles Gray. He was born on 12th July 1892.
He came up to Crosby House in May 1906 and left in 1909.
The Oundle Memorial Book claims that his body was picked up a fortnight after the battle, lying at the head of his men. He was buried on the battlefield, but now has no known grave and is therefore commemorated on the Loos Memorial.
His Colonel wrote of him: “He fell in the charge, at the head of his men. He was a gallant fellow, loved by everyone.”
His brother John Parnwell Gray, also a Crosby boy, would be killed in action in September 1918.
Charles Shortland Gray was 23 years old at the time of his death.
C Pendrill
Yarrow Fellow