Ernest Stanley Bailey was born in the autumn of 1900 in the quiet Somerset village of Barton St David. The oldest of three children, his parents were stonemason William Bailey and his wife, Fanny.

Ernest was only 14 years old when war broke out, but his time to serve his King and Country came in the summer of 1918. He enlisted in the Devonshire Regiment and was assigned to the 53rd (Young Soldier) Battalion.

Private Bailey was sent to the Rollestone Camp, near Shrewton in Wiltshire for training. With the war in its closing months, army barracks were still places rife with disease, and Ernest was not to be immune from this. He contracted influenza, which then became pneumonia, and was admitted to the camp hospital. Sadly, the conditions were to prove too much for his young body to bear, and he passed away on 6th November 1918. He was just 18 years of age.

Ernest Stanley Bailey was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the peaceful graveyard of St David’s Church in his home village, Barton St David.

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