| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Ernest was born in Beverley on October 15th 1892. He was the eldest of nine children born to Richard Woodmansey (1849-1924) and his wife Kate (1851-1902). Both of Ernest’s parents came from the Driffield area but were married in Beverley in 1870. Richard was variously a tanner’s labourer, general labourer and a wood sawyer. Ernest was brought up on Tindall Lane (off Wednesday Market), 4 Trinity Terrace and 62 Trinity Lane. Nothing is known of his upbringing, but he was recorded in the 1911 census as being a baker, a job he retained throughout his life.
Ernest served in the Army Service Corps in the war, probably enlisting in 1915. The ASC was responsible for supplying front-line troops their ammunition and equipment as well as food and water. It is entirely possible that Ernest worked in a field bakery in the ASC. In the spring of 1916 his unit was sent to the East African Front. Here British and Indian Army troops were in conflict with German forces based in their colony of Tanganyika. Led by General Lettow-Vorbeck, outnumbered German forces employed hit and run tactics, attacking then withdrawing, with British forces in pursuit. It was thus a mobile war, extending across most of eastern Africa. ASC columns would thus have been severely stretched. Ernest’s military documents are missing and his exact role unknown but after the eventual German surrender in 1918 he was discharged from the army on April 18th 1919 and given a pension. He may have caught malaria like so many of the British soldiers in this campaign. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Upon his return to the UK, Ernest was married on July 15th 1919 at Sculcoates All Saints Church in Hull. His new wife was May Hardy, born in 1897 in Beverley and living on Keldgate in the town. Her father was an engine driver. They had six children in total, the first, George, born in late 1920. The family lived in Hull, in 1939 recorded at Freehold Street. At some point the couple were divorced and May remarried in 1958. Ernest died in 1974 and was buried at Queensgate cemetery in Beverley on March 7th of that year.
Includes information taken from census, military records, newspapers |