Christ College Remembers – 2Nd Lt Charles Piper Hazard

REMEMBRANCE DISPATCH NO. 11 HAS BEEN POSTED IN HOUSES TO COMMEMORATE CHARLES PIPER HAZARD (SCHOOL HOUSE 1904-1907) WHO WAS KILLED IN ACTION ON THE YPRES SALIENT ON 21ST APRIL 1916.

Charles Piper Hazard joined school House in January 1904. A keen sportsman, he also took part in the annual ‘theatricals’, became an editor of the school magazine and a school prefect as well as being elected to the prestigious ‘Games Committee’. Described as a “boy of somewhat retiring and studious habits”, he made a mark on the Classical Vlth and won an open scholarship at Jesus College, Oxford. The School was given a half-holiday in honour of the scholarship.

At Oxford he played regularly for the Jesus College XV and occasionally for the hockey team. He graduated with honours in 1911. After graduation he joined the Colonial Civil service and obtained a posting to Agbor, Southern Nigeria, where he was later appointed Assistant Commissioner.

At the outbreak of war, Charles returned home and enlisted, taking up a commission with the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. Shortly after arriving in France in July 1915 he was wounded in action but later returned to the Front. On the night of 21st April 1916 he and his men of the 1st Battalion were ordered to counter attack to resist an earlier successful German attack on Morteldje Estaminet, Ypres Salient. Charles was reported as missing in action but news soon came in that “he had been seen to fall shot through the head while trying to assist a wounded fellow officer under very heavy fire”.

Second Lieutenant Charles Piper Hazard is buried at Essex Farm Cemetery. His brother, Douglas, who attended Bournemouth Grammar School, had been killed in May 1915. The two brothers are buried a few kilometres apart just outside Ypres.

The grave Charles Piper Hazard is visited each year by Year 9 pupils from Christ College, who lay a wreath in remembrance. Second Lieutenant C P Hazard is also remembered on the Christ College War Memorial. The wooden cross originally placed on his grave was given to his former school by his relatives in 1932. It still hangs in the ante-Chapel today.