Sgt. E.E. Ludbrook, MM and Bar
Grave marker
Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
Born on 16th February 1879 in Sunderland, Ellis was the fourth son, after John, Samuel and Thomas, of Alfred and Mary Ludbrook (nee Turnbull), and was baptised in Spennymoor on 18th November. By 1881 the family were living at 11 Routledge Street, Stockton on Tees and moved on to 16 Garibaldi Street by 1891. Leaving behind his by now thirteen siblings in 1899 Ellis was fighting in the Second Boer War in the Cape Colony with the 3rd Battalion King’s Royal Rifles, and was present at the Relief of Ladysmith; he received the South Africa Medal and Clasp.
Ellis arrived in Canada in May 1907, with the intention of making for Winnipeg and work as a general labourer. The following year he married Selina Harston, also from Stockton-on-Tees, in Frank, Alberta, and by the time of the 1911 Canadian census they were living in New Michel, British Columbia with newly born daughter Thelma, Ellis’ younger brother Robert, and Selina’s younger sister Margaret. Both Robert and Ellis were working in a coal mine earning $11.88 per week. By 1915 the family had moved to live in Edmonton, Alberta where Ellis worked as a mine fire boss, and their son Alfred William was born there on 3rd March.
In October 1915 Ellis enlisted in the 66th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force at Edmonton as Private 101403 and became a Corporal six months later, then arriving in England on 7th May 1916 as acting Company Sergeant Major and a posting to Salisbury Plain. Transferred in July to the 6th Reserve Battalion, he was transferred again in October, joining the 166th Battalion at Bramshott, Hampshire where he was reduced to the rank of acting Sergeant.
A year later Ellis reverted to the rank of Private to join a draft of men joining the 2nd Battalion in France on 29th November 1917 in Brigade reserve at Petit Servins, west of Lens. After just a month he was granted ten days leave in Paris, and on his return was over the course of three months from March 1918 appointed Lance Corporal, Corporal and Lance Sergeant. For three weeks in September he attended a small arms course, being appointed full sergeant in his absence, and on 3rd October 1918 Sergeant Ludbrook was awarded the Military Medal and four months later the bar.
The 2nd Battalion returned to England on 20th March 2019 and then on to Canada, and discharge in Edmonton on 24th April 1919. As a returning soldier Ellis applied for a Homestead Grant for land in Alberta in September 1920, but when the 1921 census was taken Ellis and Selina were living at 9108 81st Avenue, Strathcona, Alberta with Thelma, Alfred (6) and Allan (4).
Three months later on 27th June 1921, Ellis Edward Ludbrook died from prostate and bladder problems and was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Stathcona, his body was later exhumed and re-interred in a Soldier’s Plot.
His name does not appear on any local war memorial.