Died of Wounds, 14th August, 1916

A hundred years ago, an officer of the South Wales Borderers lay in a hospital near Choques in Northern France, his life ebbing away. The dried mud of No Man's Land on his uniform told the story of the trench raid where he had been wounded. Now, in his final moments, he wanted to know if that raid had been successful.

“Have they got the Hun?”
The answer was yes – the Bavarian he captured was indeed in custody, and undergoing interrogation.
“Well,” he said, “at least I have done my bit.”

With that, Charlie Pritchard died.

“The Battalion lost a gallant officer and a generous and chivalrous gentleman” said the Commanding Officer's letter to his pregnant wife at home. Charlie was also a huge loss to his home town of Newport, where he had captained the top Rodney Parade side for three seasons in a club career of over two hundred appearances. Pritchard was also a loss to Welsh rugby as a whole. He was many people's Man of the Match in the epic 1905 victory over the All Blacks. It was inevitable that a man described by the Daily Mail as "in the thick of the fight" on that famous day should have been leading men on the Western Front a decade later.
For Florence Pritchard, his wife back home in Newport, the 14th of August was a day she dreaded for the rest of her life. The child she was carrying when Charlie died, the daughter he never knew, was born just before Christmas 1916, and died in 1985 - on the 14th of August.

Taken from "Newport Rugby Greats" by Peter Jones (Amberley 2016)