Name
Ernest (Ernie) Frank Baines
28th Auguts 1895
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
NA
Biography
The photograph and much of the following information was provided by Roger Baines, Ernest’s son and Jean Keane (née Baines) his daughter.
Ernest Frank Baines or ‘Ernie’ was a Pirton lad, born in Pirton on August 28th 1895, the son of Frank and Pamela Baines (née Dawson), who lived in Ivy House, Crabtree Lane, opposite the entrance to St. Mary’s Church and now known as Ivy Cottage. He appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school. Baptism and census records list five children: Arthur (b 1886), Edith Minnie (b 1888), Alice (b 1891), Ernest Frank (b 1895) and Gertrude Mary (b c1904).
By 1911, Ernest, then aged fifteen, was already earning a living as a cart boy. Four years later, the Parish Magazine of September 1915 records him as enlisting during 1915, before August and serving in the North Staffordshire Regiment. His training was undertaken in St. Albans, which is where the photographs, appearing here, were taken. At this time, he was in the 59th Signals Company, “B” Detachment, Royal Engineers, and training on horseback. The family believe that he was a despatch rider in France/Belgium and that he also served in Ireland at some point, possibly about the time of the Easter uprising in 1916. Pamela died in February 1916 not long after Ernie joined up, when he would have been about nineteen years old.
By 1918 he was recorded as Driver 492373 in the 59th Division Signals Corps , Royal Engineers, with his home address as the cottage ‘near the Church’, now Ivy Cottage.
His service medals are held by his son, Roger, and are complete with box and the envelope in which they were sent. The envelope is addressed to Ivy House, Pirton and the box inside has ‘B WAR and VICTORY’ stamped in red, the numbers 43608 and 492373 and DVR. E. BAINES R.E. typed in black. Apparently Ernie was not impressed by what he and others went through and dismissed the medals as an insult.
After the war, during the nineteen twenties, he played for the Pirton football team ‘The Robins’. It must have been a successful era for them, because Roger has several of his father’s silver medals dating from 1923-1925. His wife was Lilian McNaughton Baines.
Sadly, Ernie was killed on December 11th 1953, in an accident which happened while he was working for Wilmotts, building the telephone exchange in Hitchin. He was fifty-eight. Lilian died November 8th 1982, aged eighty-six. They are both buried in St. Mary’s churchyard.
Additional Information
Text from the book “The Pride of Pirton” by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used.
Acknowledgments
Roger Baines, (Ernest’s son), Jean Keane (née Baines) (his daughter), Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
