SERJEANT COLIN (CHARLIE) BLYTHE
KING'S OWN YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY
8TH NOVEMBER 1917 AGE 38
BURIED: OXFORD ROAD CEMETERY, YPRES, BELGIUM
On 16 November 1917 The Times announced Colin Blythe's death with the headline, 'A Famous Slow Bowler'. Underneath it summarised his fifteen-year career, which began when he played his first match for Kent in 1899 and took a wicket with his first ball. His best season was 1909 when he took 215 first-class wickets for 14 runs, but his best work was done in 1907. He was England's mainstay in the Test matches against South Africa, and on one day in a match for Kent against Northamptonshire, took 17 wickets - ten for 30 runs and seven for 18. He played for England nineteen times.
Blythe enlisted on 27 August 1914; he was 34 and a married man. He served with the Kent Fortress Royal Engineers which was involved in laying and maintaining railway tracks between the trenches and the ammunition stores. It was dangerous work since it always attracted the attention of the German artillery. In the autumn of 1917, whilst attached to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, Blythe was in Passchendaele when, on the night of 8 November, a single shell exploded over the working party he was supervising killing Blythe and three other members of the group.