Profile

MATHIAS, Charles Lawes
(Service number 7/1100)

Charles L Mathias — Pictured as a member of the 19102 First Fifteen at Lincoln University. (Courtesy of Living Heritage Tikaka Tuku Iho, Lincoln University. )

Canterbury Mounted Rifles Officers, South Palestine, October 1917 — Arthur Rhodes is pictured standing at the rear right. (Courtesy of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Rhodes P20-48 )

Aliases	Charlie
First Rank	Sergeant	Last Rank

Birth

Date	19/10/1892	Place of Birth	Leeston, Canterbury, New Zealand

Enlistment Information

Date		Age
Address at Enlistment	Waimate
Occupation
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	L. MATHIAS (father), P. O. Box 191, Timaru
Religion
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	5th Reinforcements
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	Canterbury Mounted Rifles
Date
Transport	Maunganui or Tahiti or Aparima
Embarked From	Wellington	Destination	Suez, Egypt

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date		Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Farmer

Death

Date	12 September 1969	Age	76 years
Place of Death
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Burkes Pass Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Charles Lawes Mathias, known as Charlie, was born on 19 October 1892 at Leeston, the son of Lewis and Edith Caroline (née Vigers) Mathias. He was educated at Opawa School, Christchurch, until the family moved to Elephant Hill, South Canterbury, in August 1901.

Accordign to his personnel file he served on Gallipoli. He was confirmed as SSM (Staff Sergerant Major) and promoted to WO2 (waarnt Officer) of the 8th Squadron (South Canterbury) on 19 August 1916. He was later posted to the Training Units and Depot on 23 January 1917 and later commissioned to 2nd Lieutenant (2Lt) on 10 March 1917, rejoining the 8th Squadron on 15 March. A couple of moths later he was posted to 10th (Nelson) Squadron on 02 May 1917. More trianing followed at the School of Instruction from 27 July 1917 to 10 August 1917, followed by a transfer to the Training Regiment on 14 September 1917. The next month he returned to NZ (on duty) on 27 October 1917. Almost a year later he was promoted again to Lieutenant on 10 September 1918. With the ceasation of hostilities on the horizon he was placed on the Unattached list on 02 November 1918.

Charlie married Beryl Marjorie Herbert-Smith in 1929. His brother Lewis died of wounds in 1915 and brother Owen was killed in action in 1918.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [02 January 2018]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [02 January 2018]; School Admission record (Canterbury Branch NZSG) [02 January 2018]; Burkes Pass Cemetery headstone transcription (South Canterbury Branch cemetery records) [02 January 2018]; Waimate Daily Advertiser, 21 August 1915 (Papers Past) [30 June 2016]; SCRoll web submission by Michael Smith, 23 October 2024; "C. L. Mathias" on Living Heritage Tikaka Tuku Iho, Lincoln University at https://livingheritage.lincoln.ac.nz/nodes/view/4526 [Accessed 30 October 2024]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.