Charles Harold Mawson Author

Charles Harold Mawson, known as "Charlie", was born in Bradford in 1898, the eldest son of the evangelist, author and editor of Scripture Truth, John Thomas Mawson (1871-1943). His younger sister, later Mrs Alice Chambers (1900-1995), was well-known as a speaker at Christian women's meetings and author of several books. The family settled in Whitley Bay, Northumberland, and as a young man he took up employment in a bank. On October 25, 1916, he was called up for military service in the 2nd Life Guards, and was assigned to the Household Battalion. The extracts from his diary and letters clearly show he shared his father's evangelistic fervour and the family talent for writing. Posted to Windsor for infantry training, he spent his spare time there engaged in Christian service. But God had other plans for him. After seven and a half months at Windsor, the Battalion was posted to "France" (actually Belgium) and less than four months later he was killed by shell fire at Poelcappelle on October 12th, 1917, during the early stages of the first battle of Passchendaele. He was 19 years and 8 months old. The extracts from his diary and letters home form a fitting memorial, for on reading them, the Bishop of Durham could write, with feeling, "I bless God for this splendid young life, filled and used, first in peace, then in the fiery crucible of soldier-life, not by any vague 'new thought', nor worship of mere manhood, but by the old and unchangeable Gospel of the Grace of God in Christ" [Handley Moule, (May, 1918)]