Name
Ernest William Kitson
1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Marlowes Methodist Church War Memorial, Hemel Hempstead, Not on the Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial
Pre War
Ernest William Kitson was born in 1894 in Hemel Hempstead, the son of Henry and Ann Kitson.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at 25 Piccotts End, Hemel Hempstead, where his father was working as a bricklayer's labourer.
At the time of enlistment he was living at 69 Chapel Street, Hemel Hempstead and was working as a Baker.
He married Gertrude Childs on 18 November 1918 at the Wesleyan Chapel, Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead. Her address was given as Lockers Park, Hemel Hempstead. They had three children, although their first child died in infancy. The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1924 and Ernest continued to work as a Baker. His youngest child Dennis was killed in the Hawke's Bay earthquake in February 1931 aged 8 years.
Ernest died in New Zealand in 1970.
Wartime Service
He enlisted on 31 December 1914 at Watford and served with the Army Service Corps as a Baker with the 14th Field Bakery (Reg. No. 042302). He was sent to Aldershot on 11 January 1915 and then to France on 12 July 1915 on the SS City of Dunkirk or the SS Empress Queen from Southampton. He was promoted to Corporal on 26 February 1917.
He was demobilised on 2 May 1919.
Additional Information
Marlowes Methodist Church was one of the five churches that merged in 2006 to form Hemel Hempstead Methodist Church. The Marlowes Methodist Church building was built in 1890 and used regularly from then until 2006 and then again as the main Hemel Hempstead Methodist Church building from May 2012 until it finally closed in March 2014. The war memorial was removed from the building before demolition and passed to the local British Legion. The war memorial is unusual in that it names those who returned safely as well as those who died.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
mymethodisthistory.org.uk
