Name
(Charlie) William Robert Charles Paul Freeman-Lee
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
St Edmunds College Memorial, Old Hall Green
Pre War
Biography
The following text was transcribed from the The Edmundian (1814-1819) – The contemporary magazine of St Edmund’s College:
William received two obituaries.
First Obituary
While actually going to press we learn of the sad death of Second-Lieutenant William Robert Lee, who was a student first at St. Hugh's and afterwards at the College about ten years ago . We reprint the following notice from the Tablet, and hope to give a portrait and further account in our next issue.
"We regret to have to record the death of Second-Lieut. William Robert Lee, Royal Fusiliers, who was killed in action in France on the 10th of July, at the age of twenty-three. Second-Lieut. Lee, who at the time of his death was attached to the 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, was the third and youngest son of Daniel William Lee, barrister-at-law and of Mrs. Freeman Lee, of 110, Victoria Street, Westminster, grandson of the late Daniel Lee, of Springfield House, near Manchester, and nephew of Brigadier-General F. Lee, late of the 4th Hussars.
"Second-Lieut. Lee was educated at St. Edmund's College, Ware, and subsequently studied at Havre and Hanover. Preparing for the legal profession, he passed his intermediate examination second on the list of the Law Society . He joined the Inns of Court O.T.C. about two months before the outbreak of war, when he was at once offered a commission, and was posted to the 7th (Special Reserve) Royal Fusiliers, and trained at Falmouth, leaving for the front on Good Friday. Colonel O. L. Williams writes of him: “During the time he was with us he had always done his duty to my entire satisfaction, and he met his death carrying out what is always a dangerous duty. His two brothers are both on active service, the eldest Rifleman D. H. Lee, enlisting almost immediately on the outbreak
of war in the 1st Queen Victoria Rifles; he has been at the front since January, and was wounded on Hill 60, and has now accepted a commission. The second, Captain F. J. F. Lee, 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers, was severely wounded in the landing at the Dardanelles."
Second Obituary
As our last number was going to press we received the unhappy news of the death of Lieut. William Robert Charles Paul Lee, known to his many Edmundian friends more familiarly as "Charlie" Lee. He was at St. Hugh's, and later at the College, with his two elder brothers Daniel and Jack until the Summer of 1904. All three have fought and bled on various battlefields in the present costly conflict; Daniel in France, and Jack at the Dardinelles, where he was severely wounded, escaping with his life through the providential attention of his servant, who, that very day, had altered the position of Captain F. J. Lee's revolver which was shattered to pieces by bullets, thereby undoubtedly saving its wearer's life.
But poor Charlie Lee was less fortunate. We gave in our last number an outline of his career after leaving the College: we will but add here an expression of the feeling of pride, which we are privileged to share with his parents, at the unanimous and widespread attestation to his manly and upright character which has been evoked from those who came into contact with him before he gave up the duties of civilian life for the service of his country.
Of the performance of his duties as a soldier, his commanding officer wrote in the highest terms at the time of his death. "I think you may well be proud," he writes, "the noble and gallant way in which your son met his death." The Royal Welsh Fusiliers. were suspicious of certain enemy movements on their front, and in order to ascertain what was afoot, their officer called for volunteers for a night patrol. Lieut. Charlie Lee eagerly undertook the extremely risky work, and on the night of July 9th, with. a private, he had crawled through the British wire entanglements in front of the trenches, up to within a hundred yards of the enemy trench. Suddenly a bullet struck him in the head, and he breathed his last before the soldier who accompanied him had tittle even to unroll a bandage. The soldier, however, pluckily carried him back to the British lines, and he was buried by the Catholic Chaplain on the following day in the cemetery in which many of his regiment had already found their last resting place. His name on the Roll of Honour at the door of the College Chapel will be a constant reminder to present Edmundians,' that a long life is not essential to the perfect performance of a life's duty.
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, Di Vanderson, The Edmundian (1814-1819) – The contemporary magazine of St Edmund’s College
