Canadian Virtual War Memorial

Military Service

Additional Information

Son of Clara Furze, of Toronto, Ontario. He stated being born in 1895, in Leeds, England, but the 1901 British census and a Canadian customs document recording his immigration in 1911 prove that he was born in 1899. In 1901, he was residing with his mother and his grandparents, Charles Furze and Isabella Wade. After Isabelle passed in 1910, the three departed for Canada. All this to show that he fooled the system and was able to enlist at 15 years old. As a Private, he arrived in Belgium on 5 February 1916 and was taken on strength with the 22nd Battalion. He joined them on February 16, but given that the 22nd Battalion was a Francophone unit, he was transferred soon after, on 3 March, to the 24th Battalion, a unit from the same brigade but largely Anglophone.

After his son’s death, Clara, his mother, married to Frederick-James Clarke in 1918 and returned soon after to England where she died in 1922.

Commemorated on Page 89 of the First World War Book of Remembrance. Request a copy of this page. Download high resolution copy of this page.