BORN – Blackburn
HOMEFRONT – Place / Occupation / School Oswestry Grammar & Oundle School
EDUCATION – Oundle School, Northampton / Oswestry Grammar School
UNIT – 9 Bn York and Lancaster Regiment
RANK – Lieutenant
THEATRE – Ypres / 3rd Ypres / Messines Ridge. 9 Bn York and Lancaster at Messines Ridge 7 June 1917
DIED – KIA 7 June 1917. Aged 21.
BURIED – Railway Dugouts. (CWGC)
Laxton House, Oundle School
Philip E (Edmund) Sharples was the only child of Charles and Clara Sharples and was born on 25 May 1896 at Blackburn. His father was a cotton manufacturer; he died at Blackburn on 1 October 1902. In Spring 1907 his mother remarried to Alfred Cawood at Falmouth near to her hometown. Alfred was a school master, originally from Northampton. Between 1907 and 1913 Alfred was science master and for a short period headmaster at Oswestry Grammar School and living with Clara at 25 Upper Brook Street. Phillip though, in 1909, had started as a boarder at Oundle School, Northampton – entering Berrystead House and later moving to Laxton House. He was a contemporary at school of Captain Audley AD Lee, 9 Bn Leicestershire Regiment, KIA 1 October 1917. He left Oundle in 1912 and went on to Oswestry Grammar School, where his step father was a schoolmaster. At Oundle he was in the Officer Training Corps. His mother died in January 1913.
By the outbreak of war his step father had moved to Sedbergh School in Yorkshire, again as a school master. Philip enlisted, aged 18, in September 1914, as a Private in the 12 Bn York and Lancaster, the Sheffield Pals. It would seem he was the ‘right stuff’, and with his OTC experience, he was selected for officer training. He received his commission in July 1915 as Second Lieutenant in 9 Bn York and Lancaster Regiment. He had been promoted to First Lieutenant just a few days before his death.
Philip was killed in action on 7 June 1917, the first day of the Battle for Messines Ridge. His battalion were in action at the northern end of the battlefront near to Hill 60 at Zillebecke. He was buried at Railway Dugouts Burial Ground near to Zillebecke. His obituary in the Times newspaper read ‘Of a cheerful and fearless disposition, he made a fine officer whose loss at the early age of 21 is deplored by his comrades and friends at home’. Phillip is also commemorated on the war memorials at Oswestry Grammar School and Oundle School.
Acknowledgements. Oundle School War Memorial
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