| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Ernest was born in Hampstead, London, on 27 Apr 1896 and baptised in the local Emmanuel Church on 21 Jun of that year. Ernest was the younger of two sons born to William Henry Rutherford (1863-1945) and his wife Alice (nee Blythe) (1873-1926), a Beverley girl. They had married in Hull in 1893. His father came from London and was a joiner/carpenter and builder. For unknown reasons his father had moved to East Yorkshire.
By 1901 William Henry owned the Coffee Tavern at 17 Saturday Market and his wife ran the business. The family lived above. His father also established a fruit and potato merchant’s business on Lairgate, facing Old Waste. Ernest worked in this business and indeed was described as a “fruit merchant” when he joined the army in 1916.
Ernest enlisted for war service in Beverley. Initially he was assigned to the Army Service Corps to be trained as a driver. Though his army records exist, it is unclear why he was then attached to the Machine Gun Corps 19th Company and later 33rd Battalion MGC, attached to 11th Division in Egypt. They seemed, initially at least, to be mounted and were part of the EEF (the Egyptian Expeditionary Force) sent to the area in 1916 to defend Egypt and the Suez Canal from Ottoman Turkish incursions.
Ernest arrived in Egypt in Jun 1917 and probably took part in the string of successful actions against the Turks in Gaza and Palestine. It is likely that Ernest transferred to the Western Front after the defeat of these Turkish armies. He received a serious knee injury in 1918 and was hospitalised in the UK. After the end of the war Ernest was moved to the Tank Corps but never undertook duties and was discharged in Nov 1919. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Upon his return to Beverley, Ernest went back to the fruit and potato business, and took it over when his father died in 1926. On 4 Mar 1920 Ernest was married at St Mary’s Church. His new wife was Hilda Andrews (1895-1977) of Pasture Terrace. She had been a domestic servant and was daughter of a stonemason. They had one child, John, born on 9 Jul 1921. Ernest died on 3 Jul 1951. He is buried at St Mary's Cemetery.
Includes information taken from census, military records, newspapers |