Ernest WEST (1886–1917)
Ernest West was born in Wootton in 1886, the son of Arthur West (born in Cumnor on 10 May 1864) and Mary Ann Phipps (born in Wootton in 1860. Mary was baptised at St Peter’s Church on 7 October 1860 and was the illegitimate daughter of Eliza Phipps, but was recognized on her birth certificate by her father, the blacksmith Harry Minns.
Ernest's parents were married at St Peter’s Church on 3 November 1883 and had five children:
- Florence Eva West (born in Wootton in 1884, registered fourth quarter)
- Ernest West (born in Wootton in 1886, registered first quarter of 1887)
- Elizabeth Louie West (born in Wootton in 1889, registered third quarter)
- Ann West (born in Wootton in 1893, registered second quarter);
died shortly afterwards, buried in St Peter’s churchyard on 7 June 1893) - Dorothy West (born in Wootton in 1898, registered second quarter).
The West family appear to have been nonconformists, and none of their children was baptised at St Peter’s Church.
The 1891 census shows the family living in Wootton village. Ernest was then four years old, and his father was working as an agricultural labourer. By 1901 his father was a groom gardener, with his address specified as the Heath Cottage on Boars Hill; but Ernest (14), who was working as a journeyman baker, was living with his maternal grandfather, the Wootton blacksmith Thomas Minns (67), and his wife.
By the time of the 1911 census only Ernest’s youngest sister Dorothy was at home with her parents on Boars Hill, and his father was working as a domestic gardener. Ernest (24) was now a pastry cook and lodging with a family called Wade at 24 Derby Road, Hinckley, Leicestershire.
In the second quarter of 1914 Ernest West married Gertrude Lily Foxon (born 26 November 1884 in Hinckley, Leicestershire), and they began their short married life there. They had one daughter:
- Daisy Joan West (born at Hinckley, Leicestershire on 4 June 1915).
In the First World War Ernest West first served with the Royal Garrison Artillery (Service No. 89065) and then as a Gunner with the 504th Battery, 14th Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery (Service No. 201959). He died at Poperinge in Belgium at the age of 31 on 24 June 1917. He is buried in the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery (Grave XIV. D. 20A), and his parents paid for the words NEVER FORGOTTEN to be added to his headstone.
He is remembered on the war memorial outside St Peter’s Church at Wootton, and also on two memorials in Hinckley, Leicestershire: on their War Memorial and the memorial in the Primitive Methodist Chapel that was moved from the Wesleyan Chapel when it was demolished. A report in the Hinckley Times of July 1918 reads:
Private Ernest West of the Royal Field Artillery has died of wounds in France on June 24th. Private West joined up with he Royal Garrison Artillery and later transferred to the Royal Field Artillery. H was wounded by a shrapnel bullet to his chest the previous day and did in a military hospital. He had been in France 8 weeks. A member of Hinckley Wesleyan Church and a Sunday School teacher, he was also a former member of Hinckley Volunteer Training Corps, in which he was a crackshot. He had previously won the A. E. Hawley Silver Challenge Cup for shooting.
POSTSCRIPT
Ernest West’s widow and daughter
- Gertrude Lily West (38) and her daughter Daisy Joan West (6) were living at 12 New Buildings, Hinckley, Leicestershire with Gertrude's widowed mother Martha Foxon at the time of the 1921 census. They were still at this address at the time of the 1939 Register, when Gertrude was a hardware & china dealer and Daisy a shop assistant. Gertrude died in Hinckley at the age of 84 near the beginning of 1969, over fifty years after her husband was killed. Daisy never married, and died in Leicester at the age of 91 in 2006.
Ernest's parents
At the time of the 1921 census Arthur West (57) was working as a gardener for H. O. Quin of Boars Hill House and living at Boars Hill, Wootton with his wife Mary Ann (59) and their grandson Kenneth Stanley West (11).
- Mary Ann West died on 30 October 1932 (at the age of 71 according to her tombstone, but she was actually 72, as the parish register states). She was buried at St Peter’s Church and is described in the burial register as “an intruder under the Burial Act”, presumably because she was a nonconformist.
- Arthur West was living at West Gardens, Boars Hill and working as a gardener at the time of the 1939 Register. He was living at 152 Cumnor Road, Boars Hill when he died on 26 July 1959 at the age of 95. He was buried with his wife.
See also
- CWGC: West, E.
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 1 August 1917, p. 6: Photograph of “Gunner E. West, R.F.A., Boars Hill” in the “Heroes of the War” section (shown above with kind permission of Oxfordshire County Council, Oxfordshire History Centre)
- Wikipedia: Royal Field Artillery