Ernest Dann

A Private with the 2nd Battalion, Ernest died on 16th of December 1914 at the age of 40. 

Ernest was born at Aldeby, Norfolk, in 1874, a son of George and Eliza Dann. In 1881 his family lived at Waterheath Cottage, Aldeby, near Loddon. By 1891 his mother had died, his father remarried, and the family had moved to Lowestoft, living at Stanley Cottages, 2 Carlton Road, and Ernest was a house painter.

On 31 May 1896 Ernest married Ellen Read at Saint Peter’s Church, Kikrley. Ernest was a painter and they both lived at Kirkley. By 1901 they were living at 92 Saint Leonard’s Road, Kirkley, and Ernest was a house painter and decorator. This was still their home in 1911 when Ernest was still in the same occupation. Later Ellen married George Tye and lived at 142 Carlton Road. 

Ernest volunteered and enlisted in the Army at Lowestoft soon after the war began and joined the Suffolk Regiment (he may have been enlisted on Special Reserve terms as some records show his service number as 3/9475). He arrived in France on 10th October 1914 and was posted to the 2nd Battalion Suffolk Regiment. He was one of the reinforcements that joined the battalion after it had been decimated at the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August 1914. (It is possible that he was in the draft of 2 officers and 92 men that joined the battalion on 12 October 1914, bringing the battalion strength up to around 300).

In mid-December 1914 the 2nd Battalion were in trenches at Petit Bois, near Messines, Belgium. Around 6 p.m. on 16 December the battalion were to be relived by men from the Wiltshire Regiment. During the relief the Germans opened fire and four men, including Ernest, were killed and three others wounded. (See battalion war diary WO 95/1424/1: Ernest is named in the war diary as one of those killed on 16 December 1914)

It is quite likely that he had a battlefield grave. Later in the war the area was mined and fought over several times and many battlefield graves from earlier in the war would have been lost. Ernest thus has no known grave and in commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres. 

Ernest's brother Michael died in 1947 in the loss of the trawler Bucentaur. Ernest's half-brother Arthur died at Arras whilst serving with the 7th Battalion Suffolk Regiment.