Gerald Burnett visited the museum to relate the story of his grandfather Ernest Wyatt Burnett.
My Grandfather, Ernest Wyatt Burnett was born in Chudleigh, Devonshire, in 1886. After minimal schooling and several agricultural jobs, Ernest moved to London and became a chauffeur with various employers including Thomas Tilling. He spent the pre-war years driving around Great Britain with American tourists and contemporary industrialists such as Tommy Lipton of tea fame.
Ernest enlisted with the Royal Army Service Corps, Mechanical Transport Branch, in April 1915 and became a Staff Car driver.
In 1915, the Government appointed five official Western Front War Correspondents, Philip Gibbs, Percival Phillips, H. Perry Robinson, W. Beach Thomas and Herbert Russell. Ernest was assigned to be their driver, a position he held until the end of the war.
Ernest was transferred to the Reserve in February 1919. Alongside his ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’ decorations he was awarded a Silver Medal for Merit by Nicholas I, King of Montenegro.
During WW2, Ernest served with the Home Guard at Balcombe Place, his Sussex home, where he was chauffeur to Lady Gertrude Denman who was President of the Women’s Institute and Honorary Director of The Women’s Land Army.
My Grandfather was one of the lucky ones. He served his country, survived two World Wars, and lived a full and interesting life.
Explore more memories from the ribbon
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John Thompson
John Thompson, husband of Martha and father figure to Thomas, John and Jonah, resided in Little Crakehall, Bedale, where he worked as a blacksmith – an occupation that in December 1914, aged 44 years, led him to be specially enlisted into the Army Service Corps to serve as a farrier. Unbeknown to his family, John’s service records reveal that in January 1915, he embarked with the British Expeditionary Force to the Western Front, being transferred to Egypt in October, and later transferred to Salonica, Greece in November. On one occasion in 1915, when on active service, John was found to be ‘drunk, out of bounds and improperly dressed’, offences for which he received a fine of five shillings on January 1st 1916- not a good way to start the new year! In July 1916, John was admitted to the 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester, where he received treatment for myalgia, influenza and rheumatism in his feet and reported suffering from a ‘troublesome cough’. Following discharge from hospital in August, John was deemed ‘no longer physically fit for war services’ and subsequently returned home to Little Crakehall that September. John soon discovered that he was not the only family member to suffer in July 1916 – aged only 20, his son, John Jr, had been killed in the Battle of the Somme. On the 10th of July 1916, John Jr, serving with the 8th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment, was ordered to attack and capture Contalmaison. Advancing from Horseshoe Trench, John came under…
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John William Lodge
John was born on the 8th August 1855, the only son of Robert and Mary Lodge of The Rookery Bishopdale near Aysgarth. He was educated at St. Peter’s School, York and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated MA in 1879 and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple, London in 1883. At 18, John had joined the 5th West York Militia, which became the 3rd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment in 1881. He would serve with the battalion in the 2nd Boer War (1899-1902). The Aysgarth parish magazine of June 1902 reported on his return from two years’ active service. “A large and enthusiastic crowd met him at the station, the West Burton Band playing appropriate airs. After much hand shaking and cheering, Mr Tomlinson in an admirable speech welcomed Colonel Lodge back to Wensleydale… After Colonel Lodge replied, giving a most interesting sketch of what he had had to do in South Africa, the band headed the procession from the station, Colonel Lodge riding in a wagonette with his sisters.” From 1906 until retirement in 1912 he would be the Battalion Commander. At the outbreak of the First World War, John offered his services and returned to his old Battalion as Major, remaining with it until May 5th 1916 when he was appointed to the command of a Garrison Battalion. As Squire of Bishopdale, Colonel Lodge was a Justice of the Peace for the North Riding and was on the Yorkshire Fisheries Board. He was a skilled angler…
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Bert Brocklesby
Bert Brocklesby, a school teacher from Doncaster, applied for exemption from military service early in 1916 on religious grounds. Bert went before his local and appeal Tribunals in February and April 1916, and was given exemption from Combatant Service Only by both. To Bert, this was an unacceptable decision – joining the Army, even in a Non-Combatant role meant going against his deeply held conscientious belief that war in all forms was a crime. He was arrested as an absentee after refusing to obey the order to report to his nearby barracks to be enlisted into the Non Combatant Corps. Bert refused to compromise his principles in any way, and did not even take the step of signing his Army papers – denying the military authorities even this rudimentary control over his life. For making this stand, and for disobeying other orders, Bert was Court Martialled and would soon become one of a group of Absolutists (known as the ‘Richmond 16’) sent to France from Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, as military prisoners. It seems that Bert managed to drop a cleverly edited field service postcard out of the train while being transferred to France for further punishment. This postcard alerted Bert’s local MP (who sympathised with the principles behind Bert’s objection to military service) that men were being transferred to the combat zone, where, considered to be on active service, they could be sentenced to death for disobeying orders. Bert would find this out on arrival at Henriville Camp, Northern France….