Name
Ernest Coker
1897
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/07/1916
18
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
14093
Bedfordshire Regiment
6th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
POZIERES BRITISH CEMETERY, OVILLERS-LA BOISSELLE
III. H. 1.
France
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Memorial Plaque, St Lawrence Church, Bovingdon, Memorial Plaque, Memorial Hall, Bovingdon
Pre War
Ernest Coker was born in 1897, the son of George and (Fanny) Elizabeth Coker, and baptised on 1 Aug 1897 in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire. He was one of six children, although one died in early childhood.
On the 1901 Census, Ernest, aged 4 and his sister Lily, aged 8, were both patients in the West Herts Infirmary at Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead. His parents and siblings Frank and Ethel are listed as living at Little Hay, Bovingdon, where his father was working as a horseman on a farm.
His father died in early 1911, aged 44 and on the 1911 Census, Ernest was living with his widowed mother and siblings at Longcroft Cottages, Bovingdon.
They later lived at Thorn Cottage, The Common, Berkhamsted.
Wartime Service
Ernest enlisted at Watford and joined the 6th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. After basic training he arrived in France on 24 Aug 1915.
The 6th Battalion spent most of their time in trenches and on working parties, sometimes digging all day and night, in the area around Orville, Bienvillers, Hannescamps and Fonquevillers to the south west of Arras, with intermittent shelling and artillery fire being exchanged with the enemy, resulting in many casualties.
Ernest was killed in action, aged 18, during an attack on Pozieres, (part of the Battle of Bazentin Ridge in the Battle of the Somme). The brigade were held up by hostile machine guns and Ernest was one of the 25 soldiers believed missing in action and his death was initially presumed on or since 15 July 1916. At the end of the war his body was found by a Canadian Graves Detachment on 7 June 1919 and reinterred with others from the 6th Bedfordshire Regiment (concentrated) at Pozieres British Cemetery, Ovillers-la-Boiselle, France.
Additional Information
His mother received a war gratuity of £8 10s and pay owing of £7 16s 6d. She also received a pension of 5 shillings a week.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Malcolm Lennox, Dick West
