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1456, Private, 48th Australian Imperial Force. Killed in action 6th August 1916 at Pozieres, France. Age 23. Son of Charles Wells Burks, of "The Firs," Eastfield, Peterborough, England, and the late Martha W. Burks.

He is one of two Australian casualties of the Great War commemorated on the Peterborough Cathedral- King’s' School War Memorial where he is shown as P C Burks. Old Boys are known as  Petriburgians.

He is also on the Peterborough War Memorial.

He was born in Peterborough on 16/11/1893, the eldest child of Charles and Martha Burks, and the brother of Private Jack Victor Burks, who also fell whilst serving with British forces- 7th Northamptonshire Regiment-Service Number 14647.[Jack was born at All Saints, Peterborough and enlisted in Peterborough. Killed in action 25th September 1915 at Loos, France. Age 18. Commemorated on LOOS MEMORIAL.]

On the 1901 census Charles was living with his parents in Cambridge House, 152 Broadway, Peterborough. The family later moved to The Firs, 305 Eastfield Road.

His mother died in 1908 and his father re-married a year later. He was admitted to The King’s School on 20/1/1904 from Miss Mays’ School. He was cast as a maid of honour (“Firenza”) in a school play in 1907. He left school on 7/4/1909 to work at J.R.Smart’s accountancy firm. By the 1911 census he was living as a boarder at 372 Camden Road, Holloway, working as an apprentice in the pianoforte trade. When he left England for Australia aboard the Orontes, on 27/2/1914, he was recorded on the ship’s manifest as a piano tuner. He enlisted at Blackboy Hill, Western Australia on 19/11/1914 as a Private with the 16th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force. He was 5ft 7 inches tall, with fair hair and grey eyes. He enlisted as “Charles” and gave his father’s address as “Eastfield, Peterborough”. He embarked on 22/2/1915 at Fremantle on H.M.A.T. A50 Itonus. He suffered from recurring bouts of dysentery and was hospitalised at Mudros on 29/7/1915; at Gallipoli on 22/8/1915; and in Malta in August, September and October 1915. He was also treated in October 1915 at Wandsworth Hospital, London and came home to Peterborough to convalesce. He re-joined his unit at Montevideo on 23/2/1916 and was transferred to the Lewis Gun Section of the 12th Brigade, 48th Battalion on 26/4/1916. He boarded the HMT Caledonia at Alexandria and landed at Marseilles on 9/6/1916. On 9/9/1916 the Peterborough Advertiser stated that he had been reported as wounded on 6/8/1916 but no trace of him had been found in any hospital. Private T. Campbell of the Lewis Gun Section stated that he and Charles were in a shell-hole at the head of their line on 5/8/1916, during the Battle of Pozieres (one of the Battles of the Somme). Both men were wounded, and Campbell wanted Charles to come with him for treatment, but he remained at his post. Stretcher-bearer Private H. Boddam stated that, while carrying another casualty, he saw Charles lying in a shell-hole, badly wounded. He was later told by another stretcher bearer that he had subsequently been killed by a shell. He was deemed to have died on 6/8/1916. He has no known grave but is commemorated as “C.P. Burks” on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in France .He is commemorated at Peterborough Cathedral in the Book of Remembrance, as “Charles Percy Burks”. In Australia he is named on Panel 145 at the Australian War Memorial, and is believed to be named on a tablet on the State War Memorial at Mount Eliza, Western Australia. His effects, including a Testament, a French book and a photograph, were returned to his father in Peterborough. He was engaged to be married  when he died. When his fiancée, Florence Quincey, sought news of him from the Australian Red Cross Society she was living at 5 Symons Street, Sloane Square, London. (She is likely to have been the Florence May Quincey, apprentice milliner, who lived at 165 Cromwell Road, Peterborough in 1911).

Both the World War 1 and World War 2 memorials in respect of  the ex-King's School Pupils and are to be found inside St Sprite’s Chapel within Peterborough Cathedral. The World War 1 memorial takes the form of a stone tablet with the name and arms of the school carved and painted within the pediment, with a green wreath and gold inscription beneath the names. There are 29 names listed of those who gave their lives. King's School was founded by King Henry VIII in 1541 as the Cathedral School to educate 'twenty poor boys' and is one of seven established, re-endowed or renamed, during the dissolution of the monasteries for the education of "twenty poor boys". To this day the school maintains close links with Peterborough Cathedral.

SCHOLA REGIA PETRIBURGENSIS
"TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE OLD BOYS OF THE KINGS SCHOOL PETERBOROUGH WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY

1914 - 1918