Sapper Charles Frederick Fisher (service number 441528) was an English‑born farmer from Saskatchewan who served with the 6th Field Company, Canadian Engineers, and was killed in action on 3 May 1917 near Willerval, Pas‑de‑Calais, France.[file:18][web:13][web:7] He is buried in Beehive Cemetery, Willerval, where he lies in Grave B.16, among predominantly Canadian casualties of the Arras fighting.[file:18][web:7][web:10]
“An English farm boy turned Canadian sapper, killed while supporting the Arras offensive in 1917.”
Family reconstruction and official records.
Early Life and Family
Charles Frederick Fisher was born on 2 December 1884 in Shepherdswell, Kent, England, his birth registered in the Dover registration district in the December quarter of 1884.[file:18] He was the son of Charles William Page Fisher and Jane Raines, linking him to a Kentish family rooted in the rural south‑east of England.[file:18]
On 5 April 1891 he appeared in the census at Roffey Hurst, Forest Road, Horsham, Sussex, recorded as a six‑year‑old son in his parents’ household.[file:18] By 31 March 1901 he was living in East Grinstead, Sussex, working away from home as a 16‑year‑old servant and footman at Halsford House, showing an early move into domestic service and mobility in search of employment.[file:18]
These early English records place Charles within the world of the rural and service classes, moving between Kent and Sussex at the turn of the twentieth century.[file:18] His later description as Anglican in Canadian records suggests that he retained the Church of England affiliation of his upbringing after emigrating overseas.[file:18]
Migration to Canada and Prairie Life
Charles emigrated to Canada in the early 1900s, with one compiled report recording his arrival in 1906 at the age of 21.[file:18] That year he is noted in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, as a hired man, indicating that he quickly found agricultural work on the developing Canadian prairies.[file:18]
By 1 June 1911 the census shows him in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, described as a 26‑year‑old farmer, single and the head of his own household.[file:18] Further references place him in the Prince Albert area in 1913 and 1914, consolidating his life as a prairie farmer in central Saskatchewan.[file:18]
In the 1916 census he is associated with Invergordon, Saskatchewan, at the address “45, 24, 2, Invergordon”, recorded as a 28‑year‑old single son with an immigration year of 1908 and marked as “Military Service: Overseas”.[file:18] This suggests that although the household information was provided at home in Saskatchewan, Charles himself was already serving abroad with the Canadian Expeditionary Force when the enumerator called.[file:18][web:13]
Military Service with the Canadian Engineers
The compiled family report notes Charles’s military service between 5 July 1915 and 3 May 1917, linked to Prince Albert and Invergordon, Saskatchewan.[file:18] He enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and served as a sapper in the Canadian Engineers under service number 441528, with his final posting being the 6th Field Company, Canadian Engineers.[file:18][web:13]
His records also note service “Also 53rd Battalion, Labour Corps”, indicating that he may initially have been recruited or processed through the 53rd Battalion (often used as a reinforcement and labour unit) before being transferred to the 6th Field Company, where his skills were required for engineering duties.[file:18] This pattern of joining an infantry or labour unit and then being re‑assigned to the engineers was common in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, especially for men with practical experience of farming, construction, or manual trades.[web:23][web:25]
As a sapper, Charles’s work would have included constructing and repairing trenches, dug‑outs, and communication lines, building and maintaining roads and bridges, laying and clearing barbed‑wire defences, and supporting water supply and signalling infrastructure for the Canadian Corps.[web:23][web:25] Such tasks frequently took place close to or within the front line, carried out under shellfire and small‑arms fire, and Canadian engineer units suffered steady casualties throughout the campaign in France and Belgium.[web:23][web:25]
“Their labours were the bones and sinews of the Canadian Corps, unseen but indispensable to every advance.”
Paraphrased from Canadian Engineer histories.
The 6th Field Company, Canadian Engineers, in 1917
The 6th Field Company, Canadian Engineers, formed part of the engineer establishment supporting Canadian divisions on the Western Front, distinct from the home‑based 6th Field Company in Canada that provided training and reinforcements.[web:15][web:23] The unit history From the Rideau to the Rhine and Back: The 6th Field Company and Battalion Canadian Engineers in the Great War, compiled by K. Weatherbe and available via the Internet Archive, describes how the company supported operations by building roads, tramways, and strongpoints, often under heavy fire.[file:18][web:15]
In the spring of 1917, the 6th Field Company was engaged in the Arras sector, supporting Canadian operations that included the capture of Vimy Ridge and subsequent pushes north‑east of Arras.[web:23][web:25] Engineers were responsible for consolidating newly captured positions, improving approaches, and keeping lines of communication open as the front moved into previously German‑held ground.[web:23][web:25]
Willerval, about ten kilometres north‑east of Arras, became a focus of operations as Allied forces advanced through the area during the Battles of Arras.[web:4][web:7] Nearby, a strong German machine‑gun position dubbed “The Beehive” by British troops dominated the ground, and its capture and consolidation required significant engineer support to make the position defensible and to connect it to the broader trench system.[web:4][web:7]
Circumstances of Death
Official Canadian records confirm that Sapper Charles Frederick Fisher of the Canadian Engineers, 6th Field Company, died on 3 May 1917 at the age of 32.[web:13][web:16] The Veterans Affairs Canada entry records his unit as “Canadian Engineers – 6th Field Coy.” and notes his birth on 2 December 1884 in England, confirming the link to the man documented in the family report.[file:18][web:13]
Although no detailed narrative of his final hours has been located in this summary, his burial in Beehive Cemetery, Willerval, shows that he died in or near the forward positions around the former German “Beehive” strongpoint.[file:18][web:7][web:10] The cemetery was established by fighting units after the occupation of Willerval during the Battles of Arras in 1917 and served as an advance burial ground until September that year, taking in those killed in the period of consolidation, shelling, and local counter‑attacks that followed the main offensives.[web:4][web:7]
Given the role of field companies, it is likely that Charles was engaged in engineering tasks such as improving trenches, carrying materials, or maintaining roads and communication trenches in the exposed forward area when he was killed.[web:15][web:23] Engineer casualties at this time were frequently the result of artillery fire and sniping while men were working in the open or moving between positions, rather than in direct infantry assaults.[web:23][web:25]
Burial and Commemoration
Charles is buried in Beehive Cemetery, Willerval, in the Pas‑de‑Calais department of France, where his grave is recorded as B.16.[file:18][web:7][web:13] The cemetery lies about one kilometre north of Willerval village and 600 metres along a footpath from the west side of the D50E road to Mér icourt, in an area known as Lorgette.[web:4][web:7][web:10]
The cemetery takes its name from the German machine‑gun emplacement called “The Beehive” by British and Canadian troops, whose capture in 1917 formed part of the wider Arras operations.[web:4][web:7] Beehive Cemetery contains 48 burials from the First World War, the majority Canadian, and is described as a small, isolated site enclosed by a concrete kerb, now rarely visited but deeply evocative of the fighting in that sector.[web:4][web:7][web:10]
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry for Charles records him as the son of Charles William and Jane Fisher of Crystal Springs, Saskatchewan, and notes that he was a native of England.[file:18][web:13] This succinctly preserves both his English origins and his Canadian prairie home within a single commemorative record.[file:18][web:13]
Charles is commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, which summarises his service and burial place.[web:13] He also appears in the First World War Book of Remembrance and has a dedicated entry on the Imperial War Museum’s Lives of the First World War project, which confirms his rank, number, unit, and cemetery.[web:16]
Additional biographical and memorial material, including photographs, is available on his Commonwealth War Graves Commission page and his Find a Grave memorial (ID 24181876).[file:18][web:5][web:7]
Medals, Plaque and Post‑war Recognition
The individual report records that Charles was entitled to the Victory Medal and the British War Medal, reflecting his overseas service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War.[file:18] His family also received the Memorial Death Plaque, commonly called the “Dead Man’s Penny”, issued to the next of kin of those who died in the conflict.[file:18]
Together, these medals and the Memorial Plaque would have formed a tangible reminder of his service for his parents and extended family in Saskatchewan and in England.[file:18] They complement the official commemorations on his headstone, in the Book of Remembrance, and in digital memorials, ensuring that his sacrifice remains formally recorded and publicly accessible.[file:18][web:13]
Legacy and Descendants
The family reconstruction notes that no spouse or children are recorded for Charles, and no shared facts or offspring are listed for him in the compiled report.[file:18] His immediate legacy therefore lay with his parents, siblings, and wider kin, including Canadian relatives who remember him today as a 4th cousin two times removed to the present researcher.[file:18]
Charles’s story is representative of many young men who left rural England to build new lives on the Canadian prairies, only to be drawn into the First World War and to die in France in the service of their adopted country.[file:18][web:23] Through the combination of civil registration records, census returns, family notes, and unit histories, his life can now be reconstructed in detail and shared with descendants and interested readers.[file:18][web:15][web:23]
Researchers wishing to pursue his story further can consult subscription sites that hold English census and registration records, alongside Canadian sources such as Library and Archives Canada’s guidance on Canadian Expeditionary Force units and war diaries.[web:23] In particular, the unit history From the Rideau to the Rhine and Back: The 6th Field Company and Battalion Canadian Engineers in the Great War, available on the Internet Archive, provides a valuable narrative framework for understanding the operations and sacrifices of the 6th Field Company in which Sapper Fisher served.[file:18][web:15][web:23]
Sources
• Family report: Individual Report for Charles Frederick Fisher.
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Charles Frederick Fisher casualty entry.
• Veterans Affairs Canada: Sapper Charles Frederick Fisher.
• Imperial War Museums: Charles Frederick Fisher – Lives of the First World War.
• Webmatters: Beehive Cemetery, Willerval.
• Regimental Rogue: The RCR in The Great War – Beehive Cemetery (Willerval).
• Internet Archive: From the Rideau to the Rhine and Back.