Ernest Wilfred Bennett
There is little difficulty in establishing the link between this man and Welwyn.
By the time of his birth his parents George and Mary had been married for some 15 years. George was a gardener born in Datchworth and Mary had been born in Aston. They had however long been resident in Welwyn, George just prior to his marriage in 1881, being a Gardener on the Lockleys Estate. George and Mary raised a family of ten in the Old Rectory, Mill Lane, including youngest son Ernest Wilfred Bennett born in 1896. Ernest was baptised in St Mary’s Church on the
5th April 1896.
Prior to enlisting Ernest had worked as a servant to Fruitier and Game Dealer Rebecca Thody as well as a gardener to Sir Evelyn de la Rue at Lockleys.
Ernest enlisted into the Hertfordshire Regiment at Hertford in May 1915 and was posted to the 1st Battalion. Like so many others his time in France was short. He left for France from Southampton on 6th May 1916, arriving the next day. He was then sent to No. 6 Entrenching Battalion, and on the 22nd June joined the
1st Battalion on the Somme. Sadly his time at the front was short as he was killed in action on 4th September 1916.
Ernest was the eleventh Welwyn man to be lost.
The Hertfordshire Regiment Chaplain wrote to his father-
‘I cannot say how sorry I am to have such bad news to tell you about your son, Pte. Ernest Bennett, No. 5420 Herts Regiment. He was killed in the trenches on September the 4th and we buried his body in a little cemetery nearby. A cross with an inscription will be erected over the the grave and your son’s effects will be returned to you through the quarter-master of his Regiment. It will be some comfort to you to know that he gave his life for his country, but the blow is, and must be, a very heavy one. I pray that God will comfort you in your sad bereavement, and enable you to remember is not lost but gone before’
Ernest had two brothers also serving at the time of his death - William as a driver in the Army Service Corps and Herbert, serving in the Rifle Brigade. They both survived the War.
Individual details of the Bennett survivors are to be found in the
Index of Survivors A-F
Ernest is also commemorated on the grave of his parents in Welwyn Cemetery
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