MANUSCRIPT. – Charles T. QUELCH. [A First World War trench diary written by Private Charles Quelch of the ‘A’ Company, 3rd Hants. Regiment. N.p.:] January 1915-December 12th 1915, manuscript, 32mo (83 x 47mm.) 110pp. in a single mostly legible hand in various coloured inks, some entries being single word, all are brief, several blank leaves, numerous days with no entry. (Browned.) Original limp morocco (hinges weakened, covers rubbed). Note: Private Charles Quelch No. 14335 enlisted as a volunteer on 11th November 1914, aged 23. The diary records he was first in France at Le Havre on 19th January 1915. It begins slowly: ‘Milked a cow in the sheds’. By 26th April he writes: ‘Hell on earth, shelled all day laying on top of one another in trench’ and, two days later, ‘All night stretcher bearing. Last night carrying the wounded a mile and a half under heavy shell and rifle fire- it’s simply dreadful’. He elaborates on this in the rear leaves: ‘To make matters worse we were shelled with our own guns owing to wires being cut’. Charles Quelch was killed on 27th July 1917. He was mentioned three times in despatches and awarded the Military Medal for bravery in 1916. – And a large archive of First World War material relating to the Quelch family (including approximately 900 letters written between various family members- including the two soldier brothers Charles and Thomas Quelch and their cousin Percy- to their parents in Eastleigh, Hampshire, and to others- numerous family and military documents and ephemera, postcards and photographs, including folders of later typed transcripts of the letters (large quantity).