1712: Ernest Geoffrey Crisp
Creators: name: Project Team, Lest We Forget
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: Ernest was the cousin of Sara Hargreaves’ granny (Sara is a resident of Menston). He was born in Evesham, the only son of George and Sarah Ellen Crisp of 9 Market Place, Evesham, where they ran a post office. He was educated at Campden Grammar School and then found employment as a bank clerk at the Capital and Counties Bank in Daventry.<br><br>Ernest was 23 years old when he enlisted in the Northamptonshire Regiment on 14th September 1914. He had dark brown hair and grey eyes and was five feet nine inches tall. He then applied for a Commission in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 27th January 1915 and this was accepted on 1st February. He was discharged from the Northamptonshire Regiment on 5th February and then joined the 15th Battalion (2nd city of Birmingham Battalion), Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenant on the following day. A period of training in England followed in preparation for being posted to the Western Front.<br><br>The battalion embarked at Folkstone and arrived at Boulogne on 21st November 1915. The next month was spent making their way on foot to the Somme battlefield. The weather was wet and daily marches were typically ten miles long. Billets were found in barns and houses in the villages that they passed through. The battalion finally arrived at Suzanne, on the Northern banks of the River Somme at 10am on 13th December. Tents were provided in the grounds of the chateau. The weather was very bright but the roads were extremely muddy. On the 14th December, the officers and non-commissioned officers of “B” and “D” Company visited the trenches for their first period of instruction. Two men were killed during this time in the front line before they returned to Suzanne at 9am on 15th December. Later that day, at 4pm, the same group made their way into the trenches for their second period of instruction in the front line. Ernest was a member of an instructional bombing expedition into no-man’s land and was wounded twice. He made it back to his own lines but died of wounds the following day.<br><br>Ernest died on 16th December 1915 aged 24 years and is buried in Suzanne Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme, France. His name is recorded on the war memorial in Campden School and in Evesham Park. There is also a memorial plaque in St Laurence’s Church in Evesham, where he was a regular member of the congregation when he lived there.<br><br>His parents received a letter from Ernest’s Commanding Officer that said “With more regret that I can express I have to inform you that your dear son was killed in action yesterday. With another officer he went on a bombing expedition and got into the German lines and did excellent work, but whilst doing so, he was shot through the shoulder and whilst returning to our lines he was hit by shrapnel, which smashed his thigh. One other man was killed. I saw your son an hour after he was hit and told him how proud I was of him and his work. He was very weak but in no pain. Two doctors were with him and everything possible was done but the dear fellow died in the afternoon and was buried with full military honours. I have to mourn the loss of one of my best junior officers.”