Ernest Alfred Bird (1888-1944)

My great grandfather Ernest Alfred Bird was born on 26 July 1888 in Lambeth, London, and died on 23 October 1944 in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

He was the youngest son of Alfred Bird and Emma Sharp and lived in the London borough of Lambeth.  On 6 November 1915 he married my great grandmother Elsie Lena Moore at St John the Divine in Kennington.  According to the marriage certificate the marriage was witnessed by Ernest’s brother Arthur and also by one of his sisters, Hilda.  Elsie’s witness was her brother Edwin Musgrove Moore.  On the certificate Ernest described himself as a Clerk, and was living at 98 Vassall Road, Brixton.  The address explains the decision to marry at St John the Divine, which is an Anglican church on the distinctly “High Church” end of the worshipping scale.  As Ernest was a Baptist it is unlikely that he was a regular worshipper at St John, but as the church was on Vassall Road it was probably the most convenient.  It could also be that his bride was an Anglican, of that I am not sure.

Ernest joined the RAMC, at the rank of Private, number 104751.  Via ancestry it is possible to look up the Medal Index Card, courtesy of the National Archives, of nearly all those who served in the army in the First World War.  Ernest’s card tells us that he was awarded both the Victory and the British medal, (RAMC roll 101 B81, page 6215.), which means that he a) served abroad, and b) saw active service in a “theatre of war”.  Unfortunately these index cards do not include the army service record, so it is not possible to determine where exactly Ernest saw action from this alone.  In addition, it appears that Ernest’s army service record was one of the many (as many as half of all of them) destroyed by a fire, moreover being part of the RAMC further complicates research as the Corps was active world-wide at all times and therefore not open to any interpretation as to the location of any given soldier at any given time.

We can make one assumption though, and that is that because he was not awarded the 1914 Star he did not serve in France or Belgium between August and November 1914, or did not participate in a theatre of war before 31st December 1915 (see the excellent  medals section of A Long Long Trail for an explanation of medal index card codes and much, much, more about WW1 genealogical research).  This assumption is backed up by my mother’s statement that her grandfather served in Egypt.  A number of desert-based photographs (camels, pith helmets, sand, etc) also bear this out.

One of Ernest’s souvenirs from that era was an olivewood-covered bible, labelled as a gift from the Holy Land.  “Egypt” was a coverall name for the campaign that spanned the Red Sea to Suez to the Sudan and from Gaza to Gallipolli; a campaign fought predominantly against the Turkish forces.  So it is likely that Ernest served in Palestine, instead of or as well as Egypt.  Handily out of copyright and available to view on the internet is a book called With the RAMC in Egypt, which describes the history of the Corps in the area up to the end of 1917.  I fear this book is the nearest I will get to Ernest’s experiences.

Interestingly, while on the (to date) fruitless search for information on Ernest’s war career, I came across the army service record of his next-door neighbour, Frederick Rogers, resident of 99 Vassall Road, Brixton.  If you have access to ancestry you will be able to view an army service record in full, but in summation, it lets me know his physical attributes, his next of kin, where he served and in what regiment, what trade skills he possessed, and when he went home.   I feel sad that I know more about this man than I do my own great grandfather.