Name
Ernest Stephen Dexter
1883
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
25/11/1916
33
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
53648
Machine Gun Corps (Infantry)
149th Coy.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ST. SEVER CEMETERY EXTENSION, ROUEN
O. II. N. 1.
France
Headstone Inscription
HUSH, BLESSED ARE THE DEAD
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Radlett Memorials, St Peter's Church Memorial, Barrowden, Rutland
Pre War
Ernest Stephen Dexter was born in 1883 in Barrowden, Rutland, the son of Stephen and Helen Dexter.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Morcott, Rutland, where his father was an Agricultural Labourer and his mother was a Dressmaker. By the 1901 Census, Ernest was working as a servant in the house of Henry Bosworth (a butcher) in Mansfield, Notts. He is described as a Butcher's Porter & Groom.
He married Emily Beatrice Hunt in 1905 in Uppingham, Rutland. They had three children, Doris (1906), Cyril (1909) and Joseph (1914). On the 1911 Census the family were living at Barnby in the Willow, Newark, Notts and he was working as a Farm Labourer but was living at Mill House, Barrowden on enlistment. His mother was living at Radlett on the 1901 and 1911 Censuses. His father died in 1914.
Wartime Service
He enlisted on 14 November 1914 at Oakham, initially into the Leicester Regiment and transferred into the Machine Gun Corps on 24 August 1916, being sent to France on 25 September 1916.
He was wounded in action on 12/13 November 1916, during the closing stages of the Battle of the Somme, and received gun shot wounds to both legs and buttocks. He died of those wounds at the 11th Stationary Hospital at Rouen on 25 November 1916.
Additional Information
The photograph is believed to be of the correct man. His wife, Mrs E B Dexter, Hill House, Barrowden, Stamford, ordered his headstone inscription: "HUSH, BLESSED ARE THE DEAD". His widow received a pension of £1 6s 3d for herself and her three children. She also received a war gratuity of £8 10s and pay owing of £2 0s 6d. Brother to Sydney Dexter who died on 20 September 1917 and who is buried at NOEUX-LES-MINES COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION. Another brother Harold, who served in the Coldstream Guards from 1906 was a Prisoner of War in Germany for 3 years but survived the war.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
