Charles Richard Sharpe was born at Pickworth, ten miles north west of Bourne, to Robert and Charlotte Ann Sharpe on 2nd April 1889 and christened at the village church of St Andrew's the following year. He attended the village school and left to become a farm labourer, working for the churchwarden Mr. William Knight who was also a local landowner.

He left the village in 1905 when he was only sixteen (the family legend is that he ran away from home) and enlisted in the Second Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment as a private but received his first promotion to lance corporal at the age of 19. When the First World War broke out, his regiment was serving in Bermuda but was called to active service, arriving in France on 6th November 1914, and by the following spring, he had been promoted to the rank of acting corporal. 

During the spring of 1915, in an Allied assault on Fromelles by General Henry Rawlinson's 4th Army during the Battle of Aubers Ridge, Sharpe, then aged 26, became the first soldier of the war from his regiment to win the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military decoration for gallantry in the field, awarded for most conspicuous bravery, a daring or pre-eminent act of valour, self sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy. When two companies of his battalion reached the German lines near Rouges Bancs, north-east of Neuve Chapelle, after crossing No Man's Land under heavy fire, he captured an enemy trench single handed and led a successful assault on another. The official citation published in the London Gazette on 29th June 1915 said: 

However, the somewhat formalised account of the incident misses the graphic detail of what actually occurred. Sharpe was the sole survivor of the initial part of the assault. His commander had been killed and he, as the next senior rank, was in charge with some thirty hand grenade bombs in pouches strapped to his uniform, leading colleagues similarly armed across a muddy, misty battlefield. His men were being shot down one by one as they approached the German trench until he was left standing alone but the bombs he was using were having a deadly effect with the enemy running in all directions trying to escape. He took the fifty-yard trench and was then joined by four other soldiers from another regiment who then attacked the enemy again, tossing their bombs so accurately that they captured another trench, this time measuring some 250 yards. 

Sharpe, who was always known by his nickname "Shadder", returned to England on leave for two months and on 24th July 1915, received his award from King George V at Windsor Castle and then took part in a recruiting drive to urge young, single men to volunteer for military service, visiting many places in Lincolnshire including Spalding and Bourne. He was feted, cheered and applauded wherever he went but in the brief speeches he made, he also indicated that he was keen to join his comrades in the trenches on the Western Front. He was eventually recalled to his regiment and again became involved in front line action when he was the sole survivor on a ten-man bombing raid on the German trenches in Flanders and was badly wounded by a bomb and although he recovered and continued to serve, he carried several pieces of shrapnel in his body until he died. 

He remained in the army after the end of the war, reaching the rank of sergeant, although some records say that he became a company sergeant major but this may have been an acting rank. He also saw a brief spell of service in India and apart from his VC and campaign medals, he was awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal for 18 years of exemplary service. He continued with the colours for a further five years after that and was discharged in 1928 with a total of 23 years' service but returned to the army for a further two years during the Second World War when he was in his fifties and although too old for active service, he was gainfully employed at home as a Master Sergeant Cook although because of his reputation, he often helped in recruiting campaigns and his photograph with details of his exploits was frequently displayed in recruiting offices throughout the country. His love of cookery however never left him and relatives still remember some of the dishes he prepared in later years. 

Charles Sharpe married a widow, Mrs Rose Ivy Sibley (née Cutting), and they had three children, Elizabeth Ann, who was born on 8th October 1933, John William, born on 4th September 1935, and Norris, birth date unknown but who died at the age of seven.

As a civilian, he worked on various jobs in the Grantham and Bourne areas, including time as a labourer and cleaner with the Raymond Mays BRM organisation at Bourne and he also taught gardening and physical training at the Hereward Approved School in Bourne.

Charles Sharpe was from all contemporary accounts, one of the most unlikely war heroes. He was a farm worker fiercely proud of his rural Lincolnshire heritage, totally unpretentious and an utterly unassuming and modest man. On returning to England after winning the VC, he was asked by a journalist to relate the details of his actions but he said simply: "A British soldier will never glorify his own deeds. I only did my duty." 

There were many and varied accounts in the newspapers of the day about the events in which he took part but we must look to the official account in the citation for the most accurate. However, his exploits, and those of other soldiers who had distinguished themselves in action, continued to fascinate the public and four years after his death Sharpe was immortalised in a five-penny comic, The Victor, published on 2nd September 1967, giving an idealised account in cartoon strips of the attack on the German trenches that won him his VC. 

After his death, his medals and decorations passed to his children who decided to sell them in 1989 and they were sent to Christie's auction rooms in London. In addition to the Victoria Cross, there were eight campaign and commemorative medals. 

The sale attracted a great deal of attention and press coverage and two local men, Fred King and Melvyn Patrick, both deeply interested in the First World War, launched a fund to buy the medals for public display in the town but the £4,000 they raised in donations and promises was insufficient to secure them and they went to a surprise bidder for £17,000 who later turned out to be Mr. Chris Farmer, treasurer and now Chief Executive, of South Kesteven District Council, who was buying them on behalf of the community to commemorate the centenary year of Sharpe's birth. The medals were cleaned, polished and court-mounted by a specialist firm in Bridlington and wooden plinths were made by craftsmen from the council's own workshops in Grantham in Lincolnshire to enable them to be put on permanent display. They are now on show with the council's regalia in the chairman's office at the council's headquarters at Grantham, although visitors can see them on request while copies are on display at the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment's museum in Lincoln. 

The name of Charles Sharpe has also been remembered in Bourne's street names and a small cul-de-sac off Beech Avenue is known today as Sharpe's Close.

There is another reminder of his bravery at the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment Museum in Lincoln where the horrors of trench warfare that he experienced during the First World War have been re-created. The centrepiece of the display is the simulation of a section of German trench which was stormed and bombed by Sharpe in an attempt to change the image of regimental museums as merely collections of dusty old uniforms and medals in cases by telling in sights and sounds the stories of ordinary soldiers and the conditions in which they fought. The display was opened in April 2000 by the Duke of York at a total cost of £200,000, more than a quarter of which came from a successful fund raising campaign while the rest was obtained from National Lottery grants. 

The winning of the VC carried with it a pension of £10 per annum which could, under special circumstances, be made up to £75. Its recipients were only ever men but a Royal Warrant of 1920 extended eligibility to women of military nursing services and to civilians of either sex when serving under naval, army or air authorities. The number of VC awards made to members of the armed services during the First World War was 633 and of this number 187 were killed during their acts of heroism. The number of awards during the Second World War was 179 of which 82 were posthumous awards. 

THE WAR HERO'S MILITARY CHEST Sergeant Sharpe's military chest came to light in July 2009 when Mrs Hilda Sharpe, his niece by marriage, revealed that it had been in her possession for several years. The chest was used by him to store his personal belongings each time he was posted overseas and he usually sent it to one of his family for safe keeping.
This was usually to Arthur Sharpe, one of his two brothers, and his address in Grantham is painted on one side of the box. But in later years he would deposit it with Mrs Hilda Sharpe, widow of Ted Sharpe, son of his other brother Wilf, who lives at Ingoldsby, near Sleaford, and it remains in her care.

The action in which Charles Sharpe won his VC

Memorial paving stone marks VC centenary

See also     The Lincolnshire Regiment   Hereward Approved School

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