Ernest BRIGGS

49698, Private, b. 1897, Bradford d. Thu. 20th September 1917 (aged 20).

Ernest Briggs was born and raised at Upper Pollard Street in Bowling, Bradford by his parents Arthur and Mary Briggs. The 1911 census shows Ernest, now 13, living at 35 Ripley Street with his two older and six younger siblings.

Ernest moved from the family home to live on Bright Street in Clayton and was employed as a hairdresser, not far from where he lived.

In 1915 he enlisted into the (Duke of Wellington’s) West Riding Regiment, trained and was sent to France with this unit where he stayed until July 1916. It was at this time that he was badly wounded and sent back to Britain to recuperate at a hospital in Bristol where he spent several months before returning to active duty.

On his arrival back in France he was sent to one of the many re-deployment centres around the region, where troops arriving from England were placed in front line regiments. The main centre was at Etaples, a convenient stopping point between Britain and the front and where most soldiers could say they spent at least a proportion of their final weeks of preparation before front line service.

Being sent back to the trenches was a very hit and miss experience, as sometimes a soldier could placed back into his old unit, but it became increasingly regular from 1916 onwards that soldiers were placed in whatever regiments were shortest of soldiers at the time.

This was the situation with Ernest and he joined the 1st/9th Battalion of The Kings (Liverpool) Regiment, where it was mostly likely that he didn’t know anyone. However, he settled and served in this particular unit for over nine months before being killed in action on 20th September 1917.

Like so many other soldiers, his body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial for all the soldiers who died around the Ypres-Salient region of Belgium and whose graves are not known.