Charles Wood was born at Thame on 6 th July 1876, the fifth child and third son of Zilpah and John Wood, cordwainer, who lived at 6 North Street. Charles enlisted in the Royal Marines on 27th February 1896.

In 1901 he was stationed as Gunner 6034 at the Headquarters of the Royal Marine Artillery (RMA) at Eastney near
Portsmouth. Ten years later, promoted to Corporal and married (with three children by the time of his death), he was serving on a Royal Navy ship in the Far East.

During WW1 he served as Sergeant. The RMA, formed in 1859, the ‘Blue Marines’, were technically separate from the Royal Artillery (RA) but the RMA Howitzer Brigade served alongside the RA on the Western front, armed with monster 15-inch howitzers.

Charles was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal. He was one of the 65 men wounded during the battle of Jutland on board the battleship HMS Malaya and died at Inverness.

His body was conveyed from Inverness to Eastney by rail accompanied to the station by an escort of Naval and Military men; the pipers of the Cameron Highlanders played a lament on the way.

He is buried in the ‘New Ground’ of the Portsmouth (Highland Road) Cemetery and commemorated on the Thame War
Memorial and St Mary’s Church Honours Board.