No 326503 Private Ernest George SHAW

Ist Battalion, Cambridgeshire Regiment

Formerly No 3882

 Killed in Action on Saturday 14 October 1916

Aged 20 

Ernest George Shaw was born on 15 April 1896 at 7.00 am at Water Side, Soham, Cambridgeshire.  Elder twin brother to Frederick James Shaw (7.05 am) only children of George Robert and Elizabeth Shaw (nee King).

Ernest was my paternal grandfather's twin brother and my father was named after the uncle he never knew.  The family lived at The Cottage, Clay Street, Soham. 

By age 14 George was a shop assistant (Grocers) still living in Clay Street with his parents and brother Frederick (farm labourer).

He enlisted in 3rd Battalion/1st Cambridgeshire Regiment in May 1915 in Cambridge age just 19, along side the following men from Soham :

John Reeve (28), F J Talbot (19) and E Covell (19).  

Article in Cambridge Independent Press 28 May 1915

He did not go overseas until after 1915. The 3/1st Battalion sent out numerous drafts of replacements to the 1/1st in 1916, roughly two a month, and numbering anywhere from 20 to 70 men. So Ernest would have been in one of these.

A photograph taken quite early on while he was with the UK based 3/1st Battalion shows the Imperial Service Badge, on his right breast, denoteing that he had volunteered for overseas service.

He was killed in action on 14 October 1916, age 20, during the attack on the Schwaben Redoubt and the fact he has a 6 digit number (326503) which was not introduced until 1917, tells us that sadly even though he may have been seen killed, the lack of a body meant he was treated as missing. The ferocity of the later fighting, shell fire and the terrible conditions of the ground around the Redoubt mean that this was the fate for the bodies of many of those that fell.  Like Ernest their names are listed on the Thiepval Memorial.

Information from authors of the Cambridgeshire Regiment 1914-18 Website 

Ernest is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial  Pier and Face 16 B and also on the Soham War Memorial

 

 Photographs of the “death penny” and commemorative scroll Ernest George Shaw 

Paula Hunt