Shales Frederick Lane

A Captain attached to the 9th Battalion Norfolk Regiment, Shales died on 18th of September 1918. 

Shales was born at Great Yarmouth in 1888, a son of Henry James and Isabel Elizabeth Lane. He was baptised at Saint Nicholas' Church, Bradwell, on 7 May 1888. In 1891 his family lived at The Star Hotel, Great Yarmouth, where is father was the proprietor. By 1901 his family were living at 66 Southtown Road, Gorleston. Shales was a pupil at Yarmouth College. By 1911 Shales' father had died and his mother lived at The Hollies, Oulton Broad, Lowestoft: at this time Shales was an articled clerk working for a chartered accountant.

Shales worked for Lovewell, Blake & Co., of Great Yarmouth and he passed his final exam to become a Chartered Accountant in the summer of 1911. When he took the intermediate examination, in 1908, he was place eighth in the whole of the country. 

Shales, and his brother Charles, went to live in South Africa. 

Shales joined the South African Army and was a commissioned officer. On 13 September 1917 he was transferred to the British Army and joined the Norfolk Regiment. He arrived in France on 1 June 1918 and was attached to the 9th Battalion. He joined the Battalion on 20 June 1918 and served as the Battalion Intelligence Officer. 

Shales was killed in action on 18 September 1918. The attack of the 9th Battalion on that day is described in the History of the Norfolk Regiment 1685-1918: Volume II by F. Lorraine Petre - Page 292 - 293 September 1918:

At 9 am the six platoons of the Norfolk battalion advanced, but under the heavy barrage and machine gun fire of the Quadrilateral were compelled to edge off to the right where they remained in action. The remaining companies and battalion headquarters were assembled in a sunken road at 3 pm and presently the battalion was re-organised in three companies of which one was engaged at the Quadrilateral and two were held in reserve at the sunken road. The difficulties of attack were enhanced by the failure of the French to take Round and Manchester Hills on the right.

On 18 September 1918 the 9th Battalion lost 18 men killed, 172 wounded, and five missing. 

Initially Shales was buried at map reference 62B M32 d.2.4, nearby where buried Lieutenant Walsh and Lance Corporal Cator, also of the 9th Battalion. Shales, and the other two men, where reburied at Chapelle British Cemetery in November 1919. 

Probate records show that Shales' addresses were The Hollies, Oulton Broad, and Box 1820 Johannesburg.