Melling, CF

Captain Charles Flower Melling

Born in Bombay, India, on July 16^th 1893, Charles was the youngest of six surviving children born to Samuel Melling, who worked for the Bombay Port Trust, and his wife, Eliza. By 1907, when Charles came to the College, his father had retired, and the family were living in London. He was at Dulwich for three years, leaving in the summer of 1910 whilst a member of the Engineering Remove. From school he went to work as a probationer in the head office of the Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corporation. He soon decided that City life was not for him, however, and in May 1912 quit his job in order to become an actor.

Charles was in a touring production when war was declared in the summer of 1914, but returned to London as soon as he could to enlist in the University and Public Schools Battalion. He went on to be awarded a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers the following May. He went over to the continent for the first time in May 1916 and saw service later that summer on the Somme. On July 9^th, whilst serving in the trenches near La Boiselle, he put himself at great personal risk in order to hold up the advance of an enemy bombing party who were nearing British lines. Seriously wounded, and as a result invalided back to England, he was awarded the Military Cross for his actions. After recovering he returned to the front, only to have a second period of enforced convalescence, as a result of injuries sustained at Passchendaele in October 1917. He returned to the front once more in May 1918, and was killed days later whilst on a reconnoitring mission in the Nieppe Forest on the night of May 13^th.