CWGC Headstone

Cap badge of 27th Battalion CEF

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

In 1867 Lanchester born harness maker Thomas Douthwaite married local girl Ann Place and the couple started their married life living with her mother in Elswick, Newcastle. Their first child, a son Francis was born in 1869. By 1881 they had their own house in Gloucester Street, and Thomas had business premises in Collingwood Street where he employed 6 people. Ernest Edwin was born on 10th January 1881 and he joined Francis, George, Margaret, Mary and Alfred; Miriam, the youngest was born three years later.

Younger brother George died in 1891, and when Ernest started at the Royal Grammar School in 1892 the family had moved to live in Cross Parade, and it was here that Thomas died suddenly from pleurisy in March 1895, followed a year later by Ann. The business was taken over by Francis, and Ernest and Albert also served apprenticeships to become master saddlers.

Spring 1906 saw Ernest marry Aberdeen born Mary Cross Wilson in Newcastle and their son Horace Wilson was born the following year. Living in Allony House, Rowlands Gill, Mary was also listed on the 1911 census as a harness maker.

On 12th April 1912 Ernest, Mary and Horace boarded the SS Orsova in London to sail to Brisbane and a new life in Australia. The new life was not for them and Mary and Horace returned to Newcastle, whilst Ernest travelled in the other direction arriving in Honolulu in March 1913. From there he travelled on to Canada and on 30th June 1913 Mary and Horace arrived from Liverpool to join Ernest in Selkirk, Manitoba.

The family settled in Grand Vital where Ernest started his own saddlery business, but when he enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in February 1916 Mary and Horace moved to live in Winnipeg. Becoming Private 874200 with the 184th Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Sharpe Ernest sailed with the battalion from Halifax, arriving in Liverpool on board the SS Empress of Britain on 11th November 1916, and a posting to Shorncliffe Camp, Kent.

On arrival the Battalion was transferred to the 11th Reserve Battalion and Ernest was one of the men posted to France where he joined the 27th Battalion at the beginning of December in Bouvigny Huts, moving onto the front line on 22nd December for two weeks.

At the beginning of April 1917 the Battalion was in reserve at Bois des Alleux before moving into billets at Petit Servins ready for an attack on Vimy Ridge on 9th. The war diary states that “all bands helped to relieve the tension” before they moved off. One of the objectives was to capture a trench close to Farbus, which was done with little loss of life, but then the next day an officer wrote “the trench was furiously shelled for five hours, and the enemy had the exact range, hench we lost a lot of men. Douthwaite was killed during those five hours. Before he was killed the boys saw him do a very fine piece of work with a rifle grenade. He put out of action a German machine-gun which had been very troublesome, and he saved many of our men’s lives”.

The Circumstances of Casualty report for Private Douthwaite simply states “killed by shellfire in the vicinity of Vimy Ridge”, 10th April 1917.

Ernest Edwin Douthwaite is remembered in Newcastle upon Tyne on NUT007 and in Jesmond on J1.04 and J1.19

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance, and on the Manitoba Historical Society Next of Kin Monument.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Douthwaite