Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
Ebenezer was the youngest child of shipyard foreman William Whatcott and his wife Mary Finlay and was born on 28th November 1895 in Sunderland. Living in Hendon all his life, firstly in Page Street and then in Tower Street, and latterly in St. Leonard’s Street, Ebenezer would never have known his oldest brother Andrew who was brought up by his maternal grandparents in South Wales, but he had other siblings at home, namely William, Elizabeth Jane, Catherine, George and Alfred, plus John and Florence who died as infants. By the time he was 16 Ebenezer was working as an errand boy for the local grocer and then as an assistant to a baker.
On 5th March 1915 Ebenezer attested and enlisted in the Durham Light Infantry Territorial Force becoming Private 3563 in 2/7 Battalion. Posted to France on 17th July 1916 two months later at the start of September he was posted to the 10th Battalion and was given a new regimental number, now becoming Private 42603.>[?21 year old Ebenezer Whatcott was killed in action in France on 6th January 1917 and is one of almost 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918.
Ebenezer Whatcott is remembered in Hendon on H123.04, and in Sunderland on S140.048 part 2 page 27.
He is also remembered in The DLI Book of Remembrance
