Name
Ernest Drury
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
13/05/1917
24
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Corporal
15602
Bedfordshire Regiment
6th Bn
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HARPENDEN (ST. NICHOLAS) CHURCHYARD
61
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Harpenden Town Memorial, High St. Methodist Church Memorial, Harpenden, Not on the Batford memorials
Pre War
Ernest was born in 1893 in Harpenden, the youngest son of Robert Drury, a signalman on the Great Northern Railway, and Sarah (nee Valentine).
On the 1901 Census the family were living on Station Road, Harpenden. On the 1911 Census Ernest was working as a mixer at the Almagam Rubber Company in Lower Luton Road and the family were now living at Batford Road, Harpenden. Ernest was a member of the choir at the Methodist Church, Harpenden.
Wartime Service
Ernest, having attested at St Albans on 7 Sep 1914 he was enlisted as Private 15602 in the 6th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment on 9 Sep 1914.
He went to France on 27 Jul 1915 and was promoted to Corporal on 4 May 1916.
Ernest was wounded in the chest and right leg on 9 July near Contalmaison on the Somme, on a day when the Battalion suffered casualties of 5 killed, 1 missing, and 75 wounded. He returned to UK on 18 July 1916 and although his wounds healed was discharged as unfit for further duty. He died of Tubercolosis in Ware hospital on 13 May 1917.
Additional Information
A newspaper records Ernest as "of Batford".
He is also commemorated on the on his wife's headstone in the cemetery of St Nicholas' Church, Harpenden. The inscription reads:
"ERNEST DRURY CPL 6TH BEDS REGT WOUNDED IN FRANCE JULY 9TH 1916 DIED MAY13TH 1917 AGED 24 YEARS"
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Jonty Wild, Mary Skinner, Harpenden & District Local History Society (www.harpenden-history.org.uk)
