ATTWATER Ernest 2/Lt

SKR/DAT/IP/20349

ATTWATER Ernest 2/Lt

2000-2024

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Surname: ATTWATER;

Forename(s): Ernest;

Initials: E;

Rank: 2/Lt;

Born in: Cuckfield, Sussex;

Resided in: Wandsworth;

Previous Number: 3305;

Previous Battalion: 9 of;

Previous Regiment: R Sussex Regt;

MGC Branch: Infantry;

MGC Unit: 245 Coy;

Other MGC Unit Served (1): 245 Coy;

Other MGC Unit Served (2): 50 Bn;

How killed: KIA;

Where: France;

When killed: 22-Mar-1918;

Other Data: born 14/1/1888, Cuckfield, Sussex. Prev 3305 Sgt 9 Sussex Regt, admitted MGC OC Bn, Bisley 25/9/1916, LG 10/2/1917 2/Lt.
3 yrs a Territorial 4Bn R Sussex - a Carpenter and Pro Cricketer. 5'10, 135 lbs
Cas Form: 16/7/1917 with 245 MG Coy via Le Havre, 16/11/1917 leave to UK, rejoined 1/12/1917, 22/3/1918 KIA
NOK Mrs Attwater (wife) 41 Elmsleigh Road, Wandsworth and later 4 Tizalan Terrace, Arundel
Cas Form (Ors) 18/2/1916 qualified as M gunner, 12/3/1916 72 FA, adm 1/3/1916, rejoined 21/3/1916.
Estate £126/17/4d
Name on board at Surrey Cricket Club:
Though shown as sergeant on the board E Attwater (Ernest) had been commissioned into the MGC. He was killed defending while has company was defending the river crossings just west of Brie on 23 March 1918. Originally from Cuckfield, Sussex, he had moved (like three of his brothers) to south London for work in the years before the First World War. He was on Surrey's ground staff. He is also commemorated on several memorials in Cuckfield, the rolls of honour of the Central Council for Church Bell Ringers (at St Paul's) and those of the Surrey and Sussex ringers' associations, and also on the Arundel war memorial (his father-in-law being an Arundel town councillor, in fact the memorial seems to have been situated just outside what at the time was the father-in-law's butcher's shop!).
In London he worked as foreman carpenter for the building firm of John Stenton Daniels in Streatham. Daniels was also the tower captain at Immanuel Streatham (badly damaged in the Second World War and now bell-less). Attwater also rang with his brothers at St Leonard's Streatham. He had been a territorial in Sussex before moving to London, and rejoined the Royal Sussex Regiment following the outbreak of war, joining the New Army 9th Battalion. Given his previous TF experience, and probably his experience as a foreman, he was rapidly promoted to serjeant (it probably didn't hurt that the battalion CO was also a sportsman, albeit more of the Indian game hunting variety). Having become a machine gunner he was transferred to the MGC and then commissioned.

His son, Mervyn Richard Attwater, was born just weeks before his death, Ernest's grave (somewhat isolated in Foucaucourt Communal Cemetery, and apparently buried there by the Germans) bears the inscription "UNTIL WE MEET YOUR LITTLE SON MERVYN". Wg Cmdr M R Attwater DSO DFC served in Pathfinder Force in the Second World War and died in 1996, one of his sons had a 40 year army career until his retirement a year or so ago.;

Other Notes: ATTWATER, Second Lieutenant, E, 58th(sic) Coy. Machine Gun Corps (Inf). 22nd March 1918. Age 29. Son of Alfred and Francis Attwater, of Cuckfield, Haywards Heath, Sussex; husband of A. E. Light (formerly Attwater), of 4, Fitzalan Terrace, Arundel, Sussex. South West corner. Foucaucourt Communal Cemetery - Somme, France.
NB: 50 Bn, not 58 Coy;

Related National Archives files: WO339/67627;

END OF RECORD.

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