Ernest Thompson

Published 1919

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Ernest, born on 28th August 1898 in Southwick, Sunderland, was the first son of joiner Thomas Stonehouse Thompson and his wife of two years, Jane Isabella Hymers. It was shortly after the birth of their second son Christopher in 1899, that Jane died. Two years later in June 1901 Thomas married Harriet Strong, twenty years his junior, who became step mother to Ernest and Christopher. Ernest worked alongside his father and became a carpenter and on 18th March 1911 Thomas and Ernest arrived in Canada intent on starting a new life for the whole family. Fifteen months later Harriet and Christopher arrived and joined them in Toronto where they all settled in Macaulay Street.

On 14th June 1915 Ernest, lying about his date of birth and making himself two years older than he was, enlisted as Gunner 91238 with the 8th Brigade, 30th Battery, Canadian Field Artillery. Posted to Camp Niagara in Toronto for initial training on 14th February 1916 the men arrived in Plymouth having crossed the Atlantic on the SS Metagama and were posted to Bramshott, Hampshire.

Arriving on French soil on 14th July 1916 the 8th Brigade provided field artillery support as part of the 3rd and 4th Canadian Divisional Artilleries in France and Flanders.

On 28th April 1917 Gunner Thompson was wounded in the back of head during fighting at Vimy Ridge and by 2nd May was dangerously ill in 13th General Hospital, Boulogne with a wound that had penetrated his brain. Operated on to clean the wound and remove the bullet Ernest Thompson died on 9th May 1917, just two weeks after his younger brother Christopher had enlisted in the Canadian Artillery.

Ernest Thompson is remembered in Sunderland on S140.048 part 9 page 201 and in Peter Gibson’s book Southwick-on-Wear volume 2.

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance, and in the National Memorial Album of Canadian Heroes.
Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Gunner Thompson