Lieutenant Charles Cornwallis CHESNEY
Indian Army Reserve of Officers attached to 117th Mahratta Light Infantry (Royal Battalion)

Date of birth: 21st March 1885
Date of death: 22nd November 1915

Killed in action aged 30
Commemorated on the Basra Memorial Panels 43 and 65
Charles Cornwallis Chesney was born at Allahabad, West Bengal in India on the 21st of March 1885 the youngest son of General Sir George Thomkyns Chesney KCB CSI CIE MP, Indian Army, and Lady Anna Louisa (nee Palmer) Chesney 27 Inverness Terrace, Bayswater, in London.

He was educated at Hazelwood School at July 1895 which left with no school in mind. He went on to Bradfield College from May 1896 to December 1901. On leaving school he entered the Royal Military College Sandhurst joining the 1st King’s Indian Cadets in 1902.

In 1905 he entered the service of the East India Railway Company and was Assistant District Traffic Superintendent at Howrah when war broke out.

He was married at Allahabad in India to Phyllis (nee Holl) on the 27th of November 1907.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Infantry Branch of the Indian Reserve of Officers on the 16th of July 1909 and was promoted to Lieutenant the 19th of June 1914. He served for some months with a regiment in Rajputana before transferring to the 117th Maharatta Light Infantry and going with them to Mesopotamia as their Adjutant.

On the night of the 21st of November 1915 British forces, under General Townsend, undertook a forced march in order to assault Turkish positions near the town of Ctesiphon. The trench lines straddled the river and formed a position which was invisible to the British as they advanced. Townsend had spilt his forces into three columns; C Column was the first to attack, but this failed under a hail of rifle and artillery fire. A Column was also halted short of the enemy front line while B Column managed to capture the Turkish front line trenches. The battle continued for two more days before the opposing Generals decided to withdraw having inflicted heavy casualties on each others forces. Charles Chesney was killed on the first day of the battle.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at the South East Agricultural College, Wye.
Went on to Bradfield College

Back