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CAPTAIN J. M. CHARLTON AND LIEUT. H. V. 

 CHARLTON. 



Captain John Macfarlan Charlton was killed in the 

 great attack, near La Boiselle, on July 1st, 1916, the 

 twenty-fifth anniversary of his birthday. He fell, shot 

 through the head by a bullet, while leading his company, 

 after having taken the first and second lines of enemy 

 trenches and when just about to charge the third ; his 



last words being to his orderly : "Is that you, B ? 



For God's sake, push on, I'm done." The orderly 

 stooped down and asked if there was anything he could 

 do, but the Captain was dead. 



He joined the Northumberland Yeomanry in October 

 1914 ; received his commission in the Northumberland 

 Fusiliers in the same year, and was promoted Captain 

 in the 21st N.F. (2nd Tyneside Scottish). He was 

 educated at Uppingham, where he was secretary to the 

 Natural History section of the school. His class-master 

 writes of him on July 13th last : " For a boy, as he then 

 was, he had a wonderful knowledge of birds, and quite 

 remarkable powers of observation. Ornithology is my 

 hobby and we spent many afternoons together, when his 

 bright, sunny nature, his sense of humour, and his 

 attractive personality made him a very pleasant com- 

 panion. I remember the editor of the Aviculiurcd 

 Magazine was much struck by his work in our ornitho- 

 logical report for the year, which was entirely Charlton's 

 writing." 



He had, at an early age, shown conspicuous ability in 

 an illustrated essay on "The Birds of the Fame Islands," 

 while competing for the John Hancock prize of the 

 Natural History Society of Northumberland in 1903, 

 regarding which the late Canon Tristram wrote to him 

 that he had had the duty of adjudicating upon the essays, 

 and although Charlton did not win the prize, the Canon 

 was so pleased that he gave him a special present for his 

 work. In December 1910 he won a special bronze medal 

 given by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 



