Charles Montagu Harris was born 1890, sixth son* of Hannah (née Solomon) and Henry Harris of Enmore, Sydney. Charles was a great-grandson of Isaac Levey, a wealthy businessman who arrived in 1835, served on the nascent Sydney Synagogue Committee and was President of the York St Synagogue in 1853. Of course Charles was barmitzvah at its succeeding, Great Synagogue. After attending Sydney Grammar School, from 1909 Charles studied medicine at Sydney University, where he was popular and a keen hockey player, club secretary and delegate to the State Association. He completed his M.B. and Ch.M. in 1914.

Charles was one of the young doctors, who - at Lord Kitchener’s request (see attached recruitment poster) - embarked on RMS Mongolia in March 1915 for England to take up duty as Regimental Medical Officers in the British Army. He was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps as Lieutenant Charles Harris and attached to 7th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers (see attached), when they arrived at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, on 9 July. Over the course of 1915, there were a series of major and minor battles between the Anglo-French and German Armies along the Western Front. On 3 August, Charles’ battalion relieved the 15th Battalion near Philosophe, in the north of France.

The 7th Battalion’s diaries and a letter from its Major Thomas Campbell to a relative in London, explained that on 7 August, RMO Lt. Charles Harris “was wounded during some very heavy shelling of our billets. He went out with our Colonel [Allenby at 4.30pm] to get some of his stretcher-bearers under cover and had succeeded in doing this, but seeing the Colonel wounded in the road, he went out again and tried to assist him under cover. Another shell then exploded. This shell killed the Colonel and wounded your nephew in the leg and arm.” Charles was transferred to hospital at Abbeville, 50km south-west. Maj. Campbell concluded, “We heard your nephew had had a successful operation on his leg. It was very sad to hear that he had died [three weeks later].”

Age 24, Lieutenant Charles Montagu Harris died of wounds on 28 August 1915 and was buried at Abbeville Communal Cemetery, Picardie, France (see attached). There are unconfirmed references to him having been Mentioned in Despatches. Even before the Anzacs had left Gallipoli, he became the first of many more Australian Jewish soldiers to die on the Western Front.

The epitaph on his headstone is the traditional Hebrew prayer:
MAY HIS SOUL BE BOUND UP IN THE BOND OF LIFE ETERNAL

* Three brothers - William Keith, Edgar Owen and Frank Alan Harris – served in the AIF and returned to Australia, whilst the other two brothers – John S. and Samuel ‘Harry’ Harris – became eminent doctors.