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Charles Alexander WellerCharles Alexander Weller was the second child of Frampton's doctor, Charles Joseph Weller and his wife, Ellen Frances Louisa née Severne. His arrival late in 1888 was marked by a private baptism on 10 January the following year. The first part of his childhood was spent at Russell House, The Green, with his older sister, Frances Alice Maud. While she was educated at home by a governess, Charles was sent to St Cuthbert's preparatory school in Malvern, later matriculating for Clare College, Cambridge, from where he graduated in 1910 with a BA. The 1911 census records Charles in London as a medical student, which led to his registration on 14 February 1913 and qualifying in that year as both physician and surgeon. Having volunteered to serve in the Army, on 10 August 1914 Charles was commissioned in the temporary rank of lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was assigned to the British Expeditionary Force, arriving in France on 15 August, but we do not know whether he spent the entire war there. Charles was in due course promoted to captain, and finally to major. He received a mention in despatches and was later awarded the 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. By August 1919, he was at Birmingham General Hospital, probably still as an Army surgeon as the hospital is given as his address, but by November 1920 his address was Frampton, where his service is commemorated on the plaque in the village hall. At the time of his marriage, on 20 April 1922, to Jane Drew Harris at St Matthias', Richmond, Charles was practising as a doctor. They made their home at Aldborough House, Thaxted, Essex, and their sons, Allan and Michael, were born shortly afterwards. That was still the residence of Charles Alexander Weller when he died on 17 September 1961. |