Charles Edward Dean krijgt grafsteen met zijn naam

Rededication Service for Charles Edward Dean - Zillebeke - 18/03/2025

Please find below some photos of the Rededication Service for Corporal of Horse Charles Edward Dean, 2nd Life Guards, at Bedford House Cemetery at Zillebeke on Tuesday 18 March 2025.

Charles Edward Dean was born in 1877 to James Albert Dean and his wife Fanny, in Wiltshire. James was a boiler maker, and Charles grew up with 6 siblings - four older and two younger.

On 9 March 1900 Charles joined the Household Cavalry, signing up for 12 years long service with the Life Guards. He had previously been a railway porter. At the time he enlisted he was a little over 5'11'' tall with brown eyes and black hair. By the time of the 1901 census he was a Trooper residing at the Regent's Park Barracks. He was promoted to the rank of Corporal on 4 December 1906.

He married Ada Josephine Taylor in Rotherhithe on 25 April 1908. Shortly after the wedding Charles and Ada moved to Fulham where they had two children together - Edward born in 1909, and Ada in 1910. In 1912 he re-enlisted for another term of engagement, and his second daughter Elsie was born that same year. In 1913 he received an appraisal from the army which described him as a good clerk, accustomed to effective office routine and booking keeping. He was 'honest, sober and intelligent'.

Being a regular soldier, Charles was put in action fairly quickly on the outbreak of war in 1914, deploying with the first detachment of the 2nd Life Guards and sailing for Belgium on 6 October 1914 - his wife Ada was living in Windsor by then and was newly pregnant with their fourth child. By May 1915 the Life Guards were in the Ieper (Ypres) area, digging trenches and receiving instruction on how to use gas masks, following the first use of gas in the area just a few weeks earlier. On the night of 12-13 May they were tasked with relieving The Buffs from the trenches near Potijze. The Battalion War Diary is scant on information about what happened that night, but in total 35 men of the 2nd Lige Guards lost their lives on these two days, Charles being one of them. Half of these men have no known grave to this day. Regimental records suggest Charles was originally buried with a small group of fellow Dragoons near Railway Clump, Potijze, but by the end of the war anything marking the grave had been lost.

In july 1921 a casualty of the war was discovered by the teams lookinjg for field graves. His resting place was naer Crump Farm, between Potijze and Verlorenhoek. The team responsible for documenting the discovery of the body and ensuring his reburial could find nothing to identify him by name, so they recorded instead that he was un unknown Sergeant Major of the 2nd Life Guards - a description they derived from his clothing, the crown and the chevrons on his uniform, and his numerals. Two other men from the 2nd Life Guards were also recovered from the same spot. All three were buried at Bedford House Cemetery. Only one of the three was identied by name - Lance Corporal WH Butler who was carrying a disc with his name on it. The third man had only a numeral - this meant he could be identified as a member of the 2nd Life Guards, but no rank could be attributed to him.

In 2020 a case was submitted to the Commonwealt War Graves Commission in which a researcher claimed to have identified the unknown 'Sergeant Major'. They correctly pointed out that his rank does not exist in the Household Cavalry, but that the same insignia can be attributed to the rank of Corporal of Horse. Research showed that only one man of this rank was missing in this area at that time, and as such he could be identified as Charles Dean.

On 18 March 2025 his grave was rededicated accordingly, returning his name to him after 110 years.

As a missing soldier for 110 years, Charles Edward Dean was mentioned on panel 3 of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper.