Ernest Reed
Memorial: Chipping Sodbury Town Cross - Broad Street
Regiment: Hertfordshire Regiment
Medals: British War Medal, Next of Kin Memorial Plaque 1914 - 1921, Victory Medal
Rank and number: Private 267998
Parents: John and Elizabeth Reed
Marital status: Married
Home address: Home address: Back Lane, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol. Lived: 9 Westminster Road, Whitehall, Bristol.
Pre-war occupation: Bread Deliverer
Date of birth: 1886
Place of birth: Old Sodbury, Bristol
Date of death: 05/10/1917
Buried/Commemorated at: Belgian Battery Corner Cemetery. (Plot 11 Row C10)
Age: 32
Further information:
Ernest served with the 1st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment, British Army.
He enlisted in Bristol at the Colston Hall, Dec 1915. Served in France from January 1917. Ernest Reed grew up around Dodington and Sodbury with his six brothers and sisters. Both their parents were gardeners and domestic servants, closely linked to William Greenaway’s family at Dodington, next door to the big house. Ernest made the first move away from the land by going to work at the age of 14 years in a butcher’s shop in Chipping Sodbury.
Ernest married Eva Lewis, in September. 1909, at Tytherington Baptist Chapel. Eva already had a house in Whitehall, Bristol, and Ernest joined her there in a succession of short-term jobs. By the time he went off to war in January 1917, his parents John and Elizabeth Reed, had moved into Back Lane, Chipping Sodbury, possibly behind the Clock Tower. Ernest and his wife Eva, continued in Whitehall, Bristol, where they had both become bread deliverers.
Ernest was killed in action on 5th October 1917, just nine months after arriving at the front in the 3rd Battle of Ypres. The war on the Western Front in the summer of 1917 was coming back full circle to where it had begun, at and around the town of Ypres. This 3rd battle there became more commonly known just as Passchendaele, which one word conjures up all that is needed to give us that vivid picture of mud, blood and slaughter on an unimaginable scale.
Ernest Reed is remembered on the Chipping Sodbury and District War Memorial Cottage Hospital board, now at Yate and District Heritage Centre under Chipping Sodbury. He is also commemorated on his parents’ grave in Chipping Sodbury churchyard extension.
By kind permission, this information is based on the following source(s):
Alison Benton (2014) Remembered with Honour. Sprint Print, Yate. Forces War Records