Judith Farrar told us the story of Ernest Holdsworth Farrar, the Great Uncle of her husband, Don.
Ernest Farrar was born in 1882 in Leeds, after a spell at Teacher Training College in Isleworth, Middlesex he went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge. He attained both a BA and BSc. After his graduation, Ernest spent some time in Dresden in Germany, and while the reasons for this sojourn are no longer known, it is highly likely that he continued as an academic at the University of Dresden.
On his return to England Ernest was appointed to the Headship at Todmorden Secondary School. This important work continued after the outbreak of the First World War, but with the introduction of conscription in January 1916, Ernest was compelled to face several Tribunals when it was insisted that he enlist. The School Governors tried to intervene and to keep him as Headmaster, but he was sentenced to 6 months in Wormwood Scrubs prison. After an unsuccessful appeal, Ernest was sentenced by the Central London Tribunal to 6 months in Dartmoor Prison in 1917. His reasons for refusing to fight are given in the extract from the Yorkshire Post.
Explore more memories from the ribbon
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William Smith
Maureen Hunt told us about her grandfather, William Smith. William was born around 1883 in Wirksworth, Derbyshire and worked as a bath attendant at Matlock before the war. He volunteered early in the war and possibly joined the High Peak Rifles (later 6th battalion, Sherwood Foresters). He recounted to his family the horrors of war, having fought at the Battle of Ypres. Later in life he complained of chest pains as a result of having been gassed in the trenches. He was taken prisoner by the Germans on 21 March 1918, during the German Spring Offensive. He did not return to England until 1919. Gardening became a favourite pastime, helping him to cope with the mental and physical scars of war. William died in 1962 at almost 80 years of age.
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Albert Norris
265990 Private Albert Norris served in the Yorkshire Regiment, joining up sometime after January 1915. For his service during the First World War he was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal. He was transferred to the Royal Munster Fusiliers and served at the garrison in Cork. Following the war, he ran a Draper’s shop in Tonbridge, Kent. In 1924 He married Myra Donovan. Albert’s step granddaughter is Dame Kelly Holmes, double Olympic Champion.
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Edward Methuen Stone
The Green Howards Museum’s Fiona Hall shares her thoughts about Edward Methuen Stone, her maternal grandfather: “This picture shows my grandfather, Edward Stone, with my Mum on her wedding day in 1960. Edward was born in St Mary le Bow in London in about 1900; in the 1901 census he is shown as living with his parents and three older sisters – Eliza, Emma and Julia, and a brother, John in Armagh Road. There is absolutely no existing anecdotal information regarding Edward’s war service within our family. My older cousins, who knew their granddad as young children, can’t remember anything ever being said about it. My grandfather died ten years before I was born, and I can only remember my Mum saying what a kind and gentle father he was. My great uncle John was ten years older than Edward. It seems he served in the Royal Engineers and also survived the war. No service record exists for Grandad Stone, so we do not know when he enlisted or was demobbed, or precisely where he served, his medal card shows he was a Private in the Norfolk Regiment. A researcher at their regimental museum managed to find just one intriguing reference to him. On the 10th of October 1916 he is recorded as being in 23 Base General Hospital, Amara, Mesopotamia with a ‘slight gunshot wound’. That’s it. There’s nothing else. The boy from Bow was in what’s now Iraq! Needless to say my cousins are gobsmacked. How could we…