Charles Richard Sharpe

Charles Richard Sharpe (2 April 1889 – 18 February 1963) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Charles Sharpe was a farmer's boy from Pickworth, near Bourne, Lincolnshire, who ran away from home to join the army at the age of sixteen. He had served with the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment in the Bermuda Garrison before the war, arriving on the Western Front with that battalion 6 November 1914.

He was an acting corporal in the 2nd Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, British Army and 26 years old when the following deed took place during the Battle of Aubers Ridge in the First World War for which he was awarded the VC.

He later achieved the rank of company sergeant major. He left the army in 1928.

On return to civilian life, he worked at a number of jobs, notably as a physical training instructor to boys at the Hereward Camp approved school at Bourne. In the Second World War a number of bombs were dropped on the approved school, a row of wooden huts adjacent to Bourne Woods that may have been mistaken for a military camp; Sharpe was injured.

While staying in Workington with his daughter, Mrs Dorothy Foster, Sharpe died on 18 February 1963 of cerebral thrombosis after suffering a fall four days earlier and fracturing several of his ribs.

Medal His medal is held by South Kesteven District Council.