Regiment: 2nd Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment
Service No: L/10151
Date & place of birth: 28 May 1893 in Petersfield, Hants
Date & place of death: 18 September 1914 (aged 21) in France
Ernst Kenward’s parents were living in Selham at the time he was wounded and died in hospital in France in 1914, but it is not clear whether Ernest himself ever lived there.
Family background
Ernest Henry (Harry) Kenward was born on 28 May 1893 in Petersfield, Hants. He was one of eleven children of Albery Edwin Kenward, a cowman from Westhampnett, and his wife Harriett nee Kimber from Petersfield.
By 1901 the family was living in Goring and by 1911 at 49 Offham, north of Arundel, where Ernest was working as a groom. By 1914, his parents were living in Rectory Cottages, Selham.
Military service
Ernest enlisted in Chichester in 1913 as a regular soldier, Private L/10151, in the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. From 12 August 1914 his battalion served with the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front and during 1914 fought in The Battle of Mons and the subsequent retreat and The Battle of the Marne. He was wounded during one of these.
Death and commemoration
Ernest died on 18 September 1914. The West Sussex County Times of 26 September 1914 reported:
Mr and Mrs Kenward of Rectory cottages, Selham, have been notified that their son Ernest, a Private in the Royal Sussex Regiment, has died in hospital from a wound in the stomach. Private Kenward had been in the Regiment about 18 months and was 21 years of age. Sad to relate, after the news from the War Office, Mr and Mrs Kenward received a post card from their son stating that he was in hospital wounded, but soon hoped to be discharged.
He was buried in grave H2.2 in the military plot of Nantes (La Bouteillerie) cemetery and is commemorated on the Selham war memorial.