Name
Ernest James Brown
19/10/1883
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
31/07/1917
32
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Royal Welch Fusiliers
4th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Mentioned in Despatches
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 22.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
He has no Headstone. He is commemorated on the "Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial" to the missing in Belgium
UK & Other Memorials
Watford Borough Roll of Honour, St Michael and All Angels Church Memorial, Watford, St James' Church Memorial, Watford Fields, John Dickinson & Co Memorial, Home Park Mill, Kings Langley
Pre War
Ernest James Brown was born on 19th October 1883, in Chelsea, London/Middlesex, son of Ernest John Brown (B 1860-1900) a Cab Driver and Ellen Brown (B 1857) (nee Brunsdon/Brunsden). He was the eldest of eight children, Blanche E. (B 1885), Charles (B 1887), Gertrude D. (B 1889), George (B 1891), Gwendoline M. (B 1893), Herbert (B 1894), and Thomas (B 1897).
His parents married on 6th January 1883 at All Saints, Rotherhithe, London. His father Ernest died 1900 in the Fulham district, London, aged 40; Ellen died 1934 in the Fulham, district, aged 75.
On the 1891 Census, he is recorded as [James] aged 7, living in Tetcott Road, Chelsea, with his parents and four siblings.
The 1901 Census again records him as [James] a stationer’s clerk aged 17, living with his widowed mother and five siblings at 30, Cristowe Road, Fulham.
On the 1911 Census, he is proving to be elusive.
Ernest married Lillian Maud Turner in 1914 in the Watford district; they had one son Spencer George Brown. Lilian remarried 1923 in the Watford district to Charles George; she died 26 November 1971 in Croxley Green, Herts, aged 86.
He has an entry in the National Probate Calendar.
Wartime Service
He originally attested on 24th March 1911, for 4 years’ short service, as Private 1341, with the Hertfordshire Yeomanry. He was a clerk with John Dickenson & Co, aged 27, 5’8½” tall, of Abbot’s Langley, Herts; He served at Home from 24th March 1911 to 9th September 1914, when he embarked from Southampton, disembarked Alexandria on 26th September 1914; he was appointed Lance-Corporal on 16th November 1914.
He embarked for Gallipoli on 14th August 1915, serving in the area until 23rd September 1915, and Home again from 24th September 1915 when he was admitted to Wharncliffe War Hospital, Sheffield, with a rupture.
He was discharged to a commission in the 4th (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers on 24th October 1916. Ernest was killed in action on 31st July 1917, at the Third Battle of Ypres (Battle of Passchendaele). He has no known grave; he is commemorated on the “Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial” to the missing in Belgium.
The Herts Yeomanry was a Home Service Unit, so he would have volunteered to serve overseas.
Ernest was Mentioned in Dispatches.
Additional Information
There is an article about Ernest in the West Herts and Watford Observer dated 25 August 1917, and a Death announcement in the issue dated 1 September 1917.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
Sue Carter (Research) and Watford Museum (ROH on line via www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk)
