| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
On 21 Oct 1916 the Beverley Guardian reported that Mrs Ernest Constable had received an official intimation that her husband had been missing since 15 Sep and she was asking for any information. The following week a photograph of Private E Constable was published. Ernest had married Isabel Dove barely 2 months earlier.
Ernest enlisted with the 7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers in Sep 1915 but was not entitled to the 1914-15 Star so had not been abroad during this time. He was certainly in England on 17 Jul 1916 when he married Isabel at Beverley St John and St Martin by licence. On the marriage certificate his occupation is shown as Private and his address as Redcar.
Ernest Henry Constable was born in 1888 to Henry and Ellen Ann (nee Gleadhill). The 1891 and 1901 Census records the family moving from Crown Terrace, Beverley to Grayburn Lane and father Henry was a tanner’s labourer. According to the 1911 Census, the family of 7 was living at 51 Minstermoorgate with four grown up sons and 16 year old daughter Florence. Ernest age 23 was a whiting works labourer. Isabel and the Dove family lived next door
Nearly a year after Ernest was first reported missing, the 21 Jul 1917 edition of the Beverley Guardian, under the heading “the Stricken Brave” announced that Private E H Constable was now officially presumed to have died on or around 15 Sep 1916. Ernest’s 7th Battalion listed 40 killed, 219 wounded and 74 missing in the area around High Wood on 15 Sep 1916. The battalion’s war diary, which can be found online, gives very detailed information of the events of the day including the arrival of two Tanks - the first time that British tanks were used in battle.
Ernest is remembered with honour on the Thiepval Memorial and also on the War Memorial in Hengate, Beverley.
Isabel lived to be 86 but never remarried. Ernest’s name can be found alongside hers on the Dove family gravestone in Beverley’s Queensgate cemetery.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |