Ernest White

Story:
Ernest White was born in 1892 in Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, and baptised there on 12th January, 1893. He was the son of Frederick James White, a Builder/Bricklayer, and Annie White (nee Kerley). At the time of the 1911 Census he was working as a Farm Labourer and boarding with a family at Farm End Cottage, Lower Odcombe, Stoke under Ham, Montacute, Somerset. His family were living at Sixpenny Handley, Dorset. He enlisted at Childe Okeford, Dorset as a Private in the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Edinburgh's (Wiltshire) Regiment (Service No. 8517). He served in France & Flanders and was awarded the Victory, British War and 1914 Star medals (Clasp). On 22nd December, 1916, he had married Winifred Mary Goddard at Childe Okeford, Dorset and they had one child, a boy. Ernest was missing in action and presumed dead on 1st Jun 1918. By this time his wife was living at Ham House, Childe Okeford, Dorset. His name appears on the Soissons Memorial, l'Aisne, Picardie, France and on the Sixpenny Handley War Memorial in Dorset. His wife remarried Fred White (her widowed brother-in-law) in 1945. Fred White (Ernest's brother) had also served and survived and had also been awarded the Meritorious Service Medal.