ERNEST RICHARD WAITE

Ernest was born in Easton on 23rd September 1883, the ninth child of David and Elizabeth Waite who lived at number 68 Easton Royal which is now part of Waverley Cottage. His father, who died in 1906 aged 74, was described on the 1901 Census when he would have been 69, as an ordinary agricultural labourer and his mother had been a laundress and was probably illiterate.

On 9th February 1887, when he was only three and a half, he was admitted to Easton Royal School.  (Admission number 298). The records of his time at the school are sparse however the School Log shows that on 5th November 1890, he and his brother Herbert (older by three years) along with Walter and Albert Yeates (by parents’ request) were punished for truanting.   On 22nd January 1892, when he was still only eight, it was noted that ‘Ernest Waite cannot keep up with the rest of the children in Standard 1. He is a very dull boy.’

Ernest left school in early July 1896 (aged 12) to become a plough boy.

It has not been possible to trace him on the census for 1901 but by 1911 Ernest is recorded as a single man living in Swindon and working as a ‘Chairmaker’ in the Iron Foundry at the Great Western Railway Locomotive Department. He was living in Swindon at 16 Drew Street as a boarder in the home of his sister Ellen Kate and her husband, Frank Bryant who had been born in Wootton Rivers and was working as a ‘Fitter’s labourer’ in the GWR Locomotive Department. Ellen and Frank had two sons, Leslie Francis and Ivor Denison.

16 Drew Street is a terraced house in a row of ‘back to back’ homes with an alley way between the rows. Drew Street was built in 1907 at which time it was the most westerly street in Swindon. It took its name from William Drew who designed the houses.

Ernest enlisted in the Army in December 1899 but we have no further information about his service until he landed at St Nazaire in France at the beginning of October 1914 and joined his unit, the 1st Battalion, The Wiltshire Regiment on the 14th October. He was killed in action on the 27th near Neuve-Chapelle which is just to the south west of Armentieres.  Aged 31, he was one of 350 casualties of the battle. His name is engraved on Panel 34 of the Le Touret Memorial which commemorates over 13,400 British soldiers who were killed in that sector of the Western Front between October 1914 and September 1915 and have no known graves.

Although Ernest is recorded on the census of 1911 as ‘single’ it appears that he should probably have been listed as a ‘widower’ as there is evidence to suggest that he had been married at least once and possibly twice. In 1913 he was described as a ‘widower’ when he married Madeline Kate Pollard in Bristol.

In the Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901 – 1929, entry no 142778 it is recorded that his widow, Madeline, was awarded a War Gratuity for herself and a child.  

The Wiltshire Regiment badge

Waverley Cottage today