Name
Ernest Edward Hookham
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
12/03/1917
37
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
G/50145
Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment
11th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HABARCQ COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION
V.L.3
France
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Rickmansworth memorials
Not on the Chorleywood memorials
St. Mary's Church Memorial, Harefield
Pre War
Ernest was the illegitimate son of Rosetta Wingfield Hookham born in Chorleywood on the 25th of January 1880 and baptised there on the 24th of March. His father may have been George Cox who Rosetta married in 1882.
In 1881 Rosetta, a Rag Sorter at Paper Mill, and Ernest were living with her parents and four of her siblings, near Chorleywood Common. In 1891 George, Rosetta, Ernest (with the surname Cox) and three subsequent children, were at 10 Hammer, Chorleywood, George being a General Labourer. Ernest has not been traced in 1901 although his family was at Drayton Ford, Uxbridge Road, Rickmansworth.
On the 23rd of December 1905 Ernest married Beatrice Florence Collins in Chorleywood and their children Beatrice Rosetta and Ernest William were born in 1907 and 1911. On the 1911 census they were living Springwell, Harefield with Ernest a General Labourer.
Beatrice Florence remarried in 1919 to Walter William Statham and in 1939 they were living at 1 The Scrubs, Northwood. Ernest’s cousin George Horace Hookham was killed in action on the 21st of April 1915.
He is recorded as enlisting in Bedford.
Wartime Service
Formerly No G/41422 Royal Fusiliers 11th Battalion was raised in Mill Hill in August 1914 joining 36th Brigade 12th(Eastern) Division.
They landed Boulogne between the 29th of May and the 1st of June 1915, their first experience of the front line coming towards the end of the month. Over the next two years the Battalion took part in numerous actions.
On the 14th of January 1917 12th Division moved to the front in the Arras Sector to prepare for the planned attacks in the Spring.
Ernest was probably wounded during the operations preceding the First Battle of the Scarpe, possibly in the fighting around Miraumont on the 26th of February.
Acknowledgments
Malcolm Lennox, Our Village in the Great War, Mike Collins
