PHOTOS:
Jeff and Jimmy with Bill Beaumont
Charles Augustus Button in uniform
Jeff and Jimmy Button at the Rosslyn Park unveiling

When Rosslyn Park FC recently held a special match to commemorate the brave young soldiers from the club who died in the Great War there was a special association with the town of Neyland and its ‘All Blacks’ rugby team.
 
Because 2nd Lieutenant Charles Augustus Button of the Royal Field Artillery was born and bred in Neyland before his work with the Great Western Railway took him to London and he was a member of Rosslyn Park, and whose name will now forever be linked with the club as one of the 108 soldiers carefully etched onto the new honours board in the clubhouse which was unveiled after the match by Bill Beaumont CBE, DL.
 

Lovely presentation made by Button brothers

 
In attendance were his great nephews Jimmy and Jeff Button, both well known in Neyland for their football, and who thoroughly enjoyed the special day where another link was forged because they were able to present a modern ‘All Black’ shirt, adorned by the silver fern allowed to only two rugby clubs outside New Zealand after several players from that country had played for Neyland many years ago.
 
Charles Button’s name had been previously recognised in a superbly-written book by Stephen Cooper entitled:
‘The Final Whistle,
The Great War in Fifteen Players’,
which has a foreword by former England captain Beaumont and caused Ian Hislop to write,
“A fresh and fascinating take on the impact of the Great War with a novel and moving focus.”

 
Whole chapter devoted
 

Charles was the last of the 15 members from the club who had a chapter reserved for a potted history of their lives after the inspiration came from a yellowed press cutting from the Rosslyn Park FC’s annual general meeting in 1919 which reported 66 of their members dead and another six reported missing, a total including the first airman downed by enemy fire in 1914 through to one of the last to be awarded the Victoria Cross in 1918.
 
Charles had been born on the 11th November 1884 and grew up in Neyland, and was one of five sons and six daughters born to John Button, originally from Llanmadoc, Glamorgan, and his wife Elizabeth, who was a Narberth girl. Charles started out as a railway clerk on the GWR at Resolven, Neath, before joining brother Frank in London. Some of his brothers played for Neyland RFC but Charles, now ensconced in London, chose to play for Rosslyn Park because the traditional route to London Welsh taken by many from our county meant a difficult journey across the capital.
 

Soon caught the eye

 
He soon caught the eye with his six feet frame and 14 stone build but in September 1914 he took the oath and became Officer Cadet Artillery Brigade at Armoury House. January 1917 he was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant and posted to France in April, where his baptism of fire began in the Third Battle of Ypres, where so many soldiers perished.
 
Charles then had 10 days of allotted leave and managed to meet up with most of his family but then it was back to the battle, where he was slightly injured n the first push for Passchendaele. In 1918 his battery was posted to the ‘quiet sector’ of the Aisne for a period of rest and recuperation. But Germany launched their fourth Spring Offensive. Operation Blucher –Yorck using new artillery tactics, the awful ‘Feuerwalz’ (the ‘Waltz of Fire’.)
At Pontavert a huge 1,000-gun salvo caused terrible losses to the British artillery. Charles and Lieutenant Large were amongst those who fought bravely to keep the bridge at Pontavert open for soldiers to pull back.
 

Posthumous honour

 
Charles was last seen trying to help his superior officer and although his body was never found a soldier confirmed he had been shot and killed in action. He posthumously received the Croix de Guerre and his name appears on the Soissons Memorial as a tribute to his courage. The Artillery as a whole is recognised at Hyde Park Corner with a memorial of a gigantic 9.2inch howitzer and four bronze gunners.
 
Fittingly, in Charles’ case, the memorial at Paddington Station, the terminus of the GWR line to Neyland has the Jagger bronze, unveiled in 1922, as the tribute to all from the work force who died doing their duty, including a young man from Neyland who travelled on it so that he could be involved at Rosslyn Park FC.
 
No letters have been found from 2^nd Lieutenant Charles Augustus Button but his moving story, so sensitively written by Stephen Cooper, ensures that his memory is secured forever for his family, the town of Neyland and Rosslyn Park RFC!
 
The ‘Final Whistle’ can be bought at any good book shop or online through book number ISBN-978-0-7524-7935-4, with all the proceeds shared by The Rosslyn Park Injury Trust Fund and Prostate Cancer UK.